


Death Gives a Holiday

by flyy0ufools



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Accidental overdose, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drug Use, First Time, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, I promise Sam isn't an addict, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Season/Series 08, Work In Progress, the boys retire temporarily
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2018-11-01 01:46:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 48,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10911816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyy0ufools/pseuds/flyy0ufools
Summary: Dean stops Sam from completing the Third Trial, terrified that Sam will die. But Sam's still sick, and he just keeps getting worse. When he falls into a coma and the doctors come up with nothing, Dean decides that it's time to go the supernatural route...but who will he make a deal with this time? More troubling, what supernatural creature would be crazy enough to makeyet anotherdeal with a Winchester?Dean decides to throw all his chips on the table and go straight the The Man himself: Death. Can the fourth (and surprisingly most trustworthy) horseman help Dean?Willhe help Dean? And if he agrees to heal Sam, what payment will Death require from Dean in return? There's only one way to find out...





	1. Nightmares, Farmers Markets, and Musicals

**Author's Note:**

> I started this fic FOUR YEARS AGO, right after season 8 had finished airing. I put it on indefinite hold because halfway through I couldn't decide where I wanted the story to go. Well, I finally figured it out. Since I'd already written half of the story, any similarities between the first few chapters of this work and season 9 of the show are complete coincidence.
> 
> I'm also currently working on a J2 non-au fic, so I won't be updating this one every day (though I do make sure to update my WIPs in a consistent and timely manner, because I absolutely hate finding a good story and realizing not only is it not finished but it hasn't been updated in like two years). So I can at least promise you that.
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

Ever since that night at the church, Sam had been getting progressively worse. His cheeks were hollow, his skin was pale, he barely ate, and half of what he did choke down ended up coming right back up. Dean even caught him coughing up blood a few times. Dean didn’t know what to do. And he was fucking _terrified_.

He tried to take care of Sam as best as he could. They stayed at the bunker, mostly just watching movies or reading one of the many books the Men of Letters had collected. (They actually had a surprising amount of non-lore books as well: fiction, nonfiction, classics, etc.) And once a day, Dean convinced Sam to go outside and get some fresh air. They walked around for maybe five minutes before Sam was ready to collapse.

Sam slept a lot. He would fall asleep for twelve, fifteen, eighteen hours at a time. Dean didn’t know if this was a good or bad sign. Considering the way Sam slept, though, he figured it was bad.

The first nightmare happened a week after Sam almost died doing the third trial. At 3am, Dean woke up to shouting. Disoriented and scared, he grabbed his gun—the one he always slept with under his pillow—and hauled ass to Sam’s room. Sam’s eyes were closed but he was yelling and flailing around, getting twisted and tangled up in his sheets. Dean stood still for a moment, completely in shock. Sure, he’d seen Sam have nightmares before, quite a few times actually, but they were never like this. Dean shook himself and went over to Sam’s bed, laying his gun on the nightstand.

“Sam. Sam! Sam, wake up!” Dean repeated over and over, shaking Sam’s shoulders. It took him almost a full two minutes to get Sam awake and somewhat calmed down. After another five minutes, Sam’s breathing started to even out.

“Dean?” Sam asked, still a little confused. “What…what’s going on?”

“Dude, you were having a nightmare. It was pretty intense. Do you remember it?”

“Oh. Um, no,” Sam lied. Dean could always tell when Sam was lying.

“Are you sure?” Dean asked, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “Because, I mean, we can talk about it.”

“No. No, I’m fine,” Sam lied again. Dean decided not to press the issue. No, he’d never seen Sam like that, but it had been one night. One nightmare. He tried to convince himself that maybe it was truly just a one-time thing.

“Okay. Do you want to stay up for a little bit, watch a movie or something?” Dean asked softly.

“Thanks, but you look exhausted. And I’m still tired too, so we should just go back to sleep.” Dean looked doubtfully at his brother. “Seriously, Dean, I’m fine. I promise.”

“All right…if you’re sure.”

“Really, it’s fine,” Sam assured his brother. “Go back to bed, okay?”

“Yeah okay,” Dean gave in. He grabbed his gun and staggered out of Sam’s room, pausing at the doorway to glance back at his brother. Sam was laying there with his hands covering his face; it looked like he was shaking. Dean turned to go back in but stopped himself. He could tell Sam wasn’t okay, but he also knew that if he kept bothering Sam about it, Sam would get angry and then _definitely_ not tell him what the dream was about. So Dean hesitated before finally pulling Sam’s door almost closed, taking care to leave it open just a crack. He wanted to make sure he’d be able to hear if Sam had another nightmare. Dean stopped at the bathroom to splash some cold water on his face. This was just one more incident in the long list of things that had him worried.

He headed back to his room and stumbled into bed. He fell into a fitful sleep, anxiety from the night’s events piercing his dreams. No more sounds came from Sam’s room that night.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

The next four nights passed without incident. Sam looked exhausted every morning when he came out of his room, like he hadn’t even gone to sleep, and throughout every night Dean would peek into Sam’s room to make sure everything was okay. Dean didn’t know what was causing Sam to be so tired, but it seemed like the nightmare really was an isolated occurrence. Five nights later, Dean’s hopeful theory crashed and burned.

Once again, in the middle of the night, Dean jerked awake to the sound of Sam practically screaming. He ran to Sam’s room where Sam was thrashing around on his bed, just like last time. Dean grabbed Sam’s arms so he wouldn’t accidentally punch either of them and started shaking him. Dean had to yell Sam’s name at least twenty times before Sam stopped his shouting.

“Sam. Sam! Are you okay? Talk to me. You have to talk to me, Sam.” Dean was still holding on to Sam’s arms. Sam just laid there, eyes shut, trying to catch his breath. After a few minutes, he opened his eyes and looked at Dean.

“I’m sorry. I’m fine.”

“No, Sam, you are so _not_ fine. C’mon man, tell me what’s going on.”

“I can’t,” said Sam.

“You can’t, or you don’t want to?” asked Dean.

“Both,” he replied stubbornly. “Look, it’s just a nightmare, okay? I don’t want to worry you.”

“Man, this is the second time I’ve been woken up by you screaming. And I don’t care that you’re waking me up, really. I care that you’re having nightmares so bad that you’re fucking screaming yourself hoarse. _Obviously_ I’m already worried.” Sam just looked at Dean. The way he looked—the pallor of his skin, the dullness in his eyes, the constant sheen of sweat coating his body—reminded Dean of when Sam spent a week in the hospital while he was having Lucifer hallucinations. But this time, he looked even worse.

“You aren’t…you’re not seeing Lucifer anymore, right?” asked Dean.

“No, Dean, it’s not Lucifer. I haven’t had any problems with that in over a year.”

“Okay, just checking.” Dean felt a flash of momentary relief.

Sam sighed. “Look, let’s just go back to bed. I’ll be okay.”

“Ha. No way, Sam. Either tell me what you were dreaming about or I’m going to make you stay up with me.”

 “Fine,” Sa, snapped, but there was no real heat behind it. “I’m going to the bathroom. You pick a movie.” He got out of bed, ducked around Dean, and left the room.

Dean stood there for a minute, trying to tie a bigger knot at the end of his rapidly fraying rope. He wasn’t mad at Sam, not at all. But he rarely worried about Sam _this_ much. When Sam was detoxing from demon blood, or after Sam got his soul back and Dean wasn’t sure if Sam would even wake up…yeah, Dean was really worried then. But now…now he was terrified. Like Sam-telling-Dean-that-he-was-going-to-jump-into-the-pit-in-order-to-cage-Lucifer terrified. He didn’t know how to handle this; hell, he didn’t even know where to start. And he couldn’t lose Sam again, not again. He just…he couldn’t do it. And he knew it was selfish of him, but he also needed Sam to see how much he cared about him. He needed Sam to know that…that Dean would do anything to make Sam feel better. But Dean felt like every road he went down to find something to help his brother ended up being a dead end. Dean felt desperate and lost.

On the way to the living room Dean passed by the bathroom. Sam was still in there. Dean stopped and knocked on the door.

“Sam, you okay in there?”

“Dude, I’m fine! I’m not five, you know, you don’t need to check up on me every ten minutes, okay?”

“Yeah. Sorry. I just…” Dean trailed off, not know what to say.

“I’ll be out in a minute,” Sam said through the door. “Did you choose a movie?”

“I’m getting there,” Dean grumbled. He walked to the living room and started shuffling through their movies. They didn’t have many, and the majority of them were two or more decades old. Neither of them ever went shopping for movies, but if they happened to see one they liked they would grab it. This led to most of their movies being on VHS tapes. Those were cheaper, and Dean wasn’t exactly keen on the idea of dropping their hard-earned (fine, hard-stolen) money on entertainment.

He stood there, trying to figure out which movie would be the most calming for Sam. He finally chose _Singin’ in the Rain_. Dean secretly liked (some) musicals and he knew Sam not-so-secretly did too. It was one of those things they never talked about but somehow still knew about each other. He popped the movie into the VCR and turned on the TV. He grabbed the remote and sat down on the couch just as Sam came into the room.

“What’d you pick?” asked Sam.

“It’s a surprise,” grinned Dean.

Sam groaned. “God, I hope it’s not a Clint Eastwood movie.”

“Hey, what’s wrong with Clint Eastwood?” Dean asked indignantly.

“Nothing, except for that one time when you made me watch all of his movies in one week. Too many monkeys, Dean. Too. Many.”

Dean scoffed but couldn’t hide his grin. “Well, lucky for you it’s not an Eastwood movie. Or a monkey movie. Now would you sit down already? You look like you’re about to fall over.” And Sam did look really unsteady; he was leaning a little too far to the left and he didn’t seem to notice. He shuffled over to the couch and plopped down beside Dean. The movie started. Sam didn’t say anything, but when Dean glanced over at him he could see a smile playing at the corners of Sam’s mouth.

They settled back into the couch to enjoy the movie. They didn’t talk; they didn’t need to. Dean never felt like the long, shared silences between him and his brother were awkward. In fact, they were the opposite. He and Sam had grown up in each other’s pockets, and it was impossible to spend every minute of every hour talking. That, plus all the hunting they’d done together, had made them experts at non-verbal communication with each other. Dean liked it; it reminded him that the relationship he had with his brother was special, even by sibling standards. He didn’t have anyone other than Sam, and that’s what he preferred. He wanted to keep Sam close.

They made it halfway through the movie before they both drifted off to sleep.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Dean woke up with a crick in his neck. Apart from that, it was the most peaceful sleep he’d had since before that night at the church. Maybe it was from being in the same room as Sam. Even though Dean loved his room at the bunker (it was the first time since he was four years old that he’d had his own space), he couldn’t deny that it felt weird not having Sam just an arm’s length away. It had taken him a few months to get used to sleeping in a room by himself. He still sometimes had trouble falling asleep. But last night on the couch he’d slept like a baby.

He shifted to get more comfortable and felt a weight in his lap. He looked down; apparently Sam had decided to use his lap as a pillow last night. He was about to wake Sam up and tell him to move—because your brother falling asleep with his head in your lap? maybe a little weird, even for them—but Sam’s face looked so serene that he didn’t want to wake him. So Dean rearranged the pillow behind his head, closed his eyes, and fell back asleep.

When Dean awoke again, Sam was not on the couch.

“Sam?” Dean called out.

“In the kitchen,” Sam replied. Dean got up and sauntered into the kitchen. Sam was standing at the stove with his back towards Dean.

“Um, you’re making breakfast?” Dean asked incredulously.

“Yeah, well, I woke up and was feeling okay for a change, so I decided to take advantage of it.”

“Awesome.” The smell of bacon and pancakes was radiating throughout the room and making his stomach growl, and the sight his brother with pink cheeks and steady footing made his heart skip.

“Food’s about done,” said Sam. “Want to get out the plates?” While Dean was setting the table and Sam was tending to the last few pancakes, Dean did a more thorough once-over of him. Sam really did look a little better. He definitely had more color in his cheeks and his eyes had lost some of that deadened look they had taken on over the last two weeks. Dean smiled to himself. Maybe things were on the upswing. He hoped this was true, but he wasn’t willing to let himself completely believe it yet. Winchesters didn’t seem to have the best luck.

They ate and talked and joked around. Sam smiled, really smiled, for the first time in weeks, maybe months, which made Dean smile for the first time in weeks. Maybe months.

“Hey Sam,” said Dean, “do you think you’re feeling up to going out somewhere today? Nothing crazy. I was thinking…well, there’s a farmer’s market going on about a mile away.” Dean knew that if anything could get Sam out of the bunker, it would be a dumb farmer’s market.

“Why do you even know that?” asked Sam.

“What, I can’t do something special for my baby brother?” Dean smirked; Sam just rolled his eyes.

“I think that’d be okay. Let me shower first.”

“Yeah, you know I didn’t want to say anything, but…” Dean waved his hand in front of his nose like something stank.

“Oh, shut up.” Sam threw his napkin at Dean.

“Careful, Sammy, you don’t want to be starting a food fight. You know I’d cream you.”

“Keep telling yourself that, Dean,” said Sam with a smile. They got up from the table; Dean headed to his room to change while Sam turned towards the bathroom to get cleaned up.

Thirty minutes later they were locking up the bunker and getting into the Impala. Dean, worried the car ride might make Sam sick, was going about half the speed that he normally would. Sam didn’t seem to notice, too busy staring out the open window like it was the first time he’d ever seen trees. Still, Dean had to admit that it was the perfect day. It was mostly sunny but with a nice break from the usual oppressive heat and humidity of a Kansas summer.

At the edge of town were a bunch of stands set up with a few dozen people milling about them. They pulled up to the designated parking area of the market; Dean shut off the Impala’s engine and they got out of the car. They wondered around for half an hour during which Sam picked out half a dozen different fruits and veggies to buy. Dean didn’t really care what they bought, he was just glad Sam seemed to have gotten his appetite back.

They got back to the bunker and spent the rest of the day lounging around. Dean cut up some of the fruit for Sam; Sam ate lunch and actually kept the whole thing down. They watched a Clint Eastwood movie and Sam didn’t even complain, but he did fall asleep on Dean’s shoulder twenty minutes into it. Five minutes later Dean fell asleep as well.

The good luck didn’t last. Dean woke up to the sound of retching. He hurried to the bathroom to see Sam kneeling in front of the toilet, knuckles white as his hands clenched tightly around the ceramic bowl. Dean bent down and put his arm around Sam’s shoulders and used his other hand to hold back Sam’s hair. After a few minutes, he moved the hand gripping Sam’s shoulders down to rub circles on Sam’s lower back, hoping it would offer some type of comfort.

“Aw, Sammy, it’s okay, it’s okay.” It took Sam another ten minutes before he finally finished throwing up. He flushed the toilet and leaned back against the wall, eyes closed. Dean still had his hand on Sam’s back and the other tangled in his hair.

“Sam, are you okay?”

“Uh huh,” said Sam.

“What happened?” asked Dean, absently carding his fingers through Sam’s locks. “I thought you were feeling better today.”

“I dunno,” murmured Sam. “I just woke up and barely made it to the bathroom before…” He waved his hand in the direction of the toilet.

“Shit. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Just…sit with me here for a minute,” Sam said, sounding a little scare like Dean might say no. As if Dean could ever— _would_ ever—say no to his brother.

“Okay, yeah. Of course. Do you want to go to the couch or your bed?”

“Nuh, god, I don’t want to move yet. I don’t know if I’m, you know, done.”

“Okay,” Dean agreed, still stroking Sam’s hair and rubbing his back lightly. They sat there for a long time, until Sam’s head fell on to Dean’s shoulder.

“Hey,” Dean whispered after a few minutes, gently shaking Sam awake. “Let’s get you to your bed.”

“K,” Sam muttered. Dean hauled him up to his feet and walked him slowly to his room. He laid Sam down on the bed and got the covers over him.

“Are you cold or hot or anything?” asked Dean.

“’M fine,” Sam mumbled.

“Okay. Goodnight,” Dean whispered. He tucked the covers around Sam, flicked off the light, and closed the door most of the way.

Dean headed back to the living room to do some more research, not that it mattered. There were no records anywhere in the bunker of anyone trying to complete the three trials; hell, Dean wasn’t even sure if anyone had _ever_ done them. But he looked anyway. He needed something to do so he wouldn’t go crazy from worry. He sifted through books and journals and manuscripts, his heart jumping every time he saw the words demon tablet. But most of it was just a former Man of Letters speculating on whether there even was such a thing, never an account of someone attempting it.

It was past midnight when Dean finally stopped pouring over the books. He got up and was about to head to bed when he heard Sam shouting.

“No, no no no, not again,” Dean groaned in fear as he ran to Sam’s room. Same as the other two nights, Sam was bucking everywhere and shouting until it sounded like he was going to shred his vocal chords. Dean grabbed Sam and started shaking him and yelling his name.

“Sam! Sam, god dammit! _Wake up!_ ” he begged. It felt like forever to Dean before he finally brought Sam back to consciousness. “Hey,” Dean said quietly, “Sammy, hey. Look at me. It’s okay. You okay? Sam, look at me.” Sam opened his eyes. They were bloodshot and teary, and full of emotion. Dean knew that look; that look was pure unadulterated fear.

“Sammy, are you okay? Fuck, _please_ say something.” Sam just grabbed at Dean and buried his face in Dean’s shoulder. Dean held him tight and stroked his hair, whispering over and over, “It’s okay Sammy, I’ve got you. I’ve got you.” They sat like that for a long time. Sam wasn’t crying but he was shaking like crazy. Dean just kept whispering to Sam, trying to get him to calm down. Eventually, Sam’s shuddering subsided. He pulled away from Dean so he could look at his face.

“I’m sorry, Dean. I’m so sorry.”

“Sam, wha…God, Sam, you don’t need to apologize for anything, okay?” Sam didn’t answer, just looked down like he was guilty of something. “Sam, look at me.” He immediately glanced back up at Dean. “I’m serious. I’m not angry, okay? I’m just worried. I don’t know how to help you.” Sam leaned back against his pillow.

“I think I’m okay now. You can go back to bed if you want.”

“Sam, you know that’s not gonna happen,” Dean practically growled. He got up from the bed and went to the door. “I’ll be right back, okay?” He was gone for less than a minute before he reappeared at Sam’s door. He was dragging his mattress behind him.

“I’m bunking with you tonight, got it?”

“Dean, you don’t have—“

“Sam. Please don’t argue with me. I’m sleeping in here and that’s that.” Sam didn’t respond, but Dean thought he saw relief on Sam’s face. Dean tossed his mattress down next to Sam’s bed.

“All right, I’m going to shower and change and I’ll be back in. Will you be okay?” Sam just glared at Dean. “Yeah, I know, you’re not five,” Dean said with an eyeroll before hurrying out of the room and to the showers.

The rest of the night went smoothly. Sam was still waiting up for Dean when he got back. He settled down in his mattress and heard Sam sigh.

“Dean?”

“Yeah Sam?”

“Thank you,” Sam said softly.

“I’ll always be here for you, Sammy,” Dean said quietly, more weight to his words than he cared to acknowledge. He heard nothing more from Sam except soft, even breathing, so Dean closed his eyes. Although he was not happy about the events that led up to this, he was glad to share a room with Sam again. It felt so much…better. It felt right. He hoped his brother felt the same way.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Over the next few weeks, Sam had nightmares every single night. The difference was, this time Dean was close enough that he could get to Sam before Sam started screaming. Sam would start whimpering, this awful sound Dean never thought he’d hear his brother—so big and tough and resilient—make. It was unsettling. It became a cruel routine for Dean; every night when he heard the echoes of Sam’s pain, he slid onto Sam’s bed, stroked Sam’s hair, and whispered to him. “I’m here Sammy, I’ve got you.” He repeated these words over and over until Sam either woke up or settled back into a calmer sleep.


	2. The Calm Before the Storm

During the days, Sam hovered somewhere between maybe-feeling-better and absolutely wretched. He tried to hide it from Dean but Dean wasn’t sure why, thinking maybe it was just out of habit that his brother did that, but it was pointless. Dean knew exactly how Sam was really feeling because it all came spilling out at night like a dam breaking, bursting, rebuilding itself by day just to crumble all over again come darkness.

Dean was there through all of it: the quiet whimpers becoming louder and more urgent; the shouts and screams when Dean didn’t wake up fast enough; the creak of Sam’s mattress as Dean climbed onto it to wrap his arms around Sam; the gentle tugging of strands as Dean ran his hands through Sam’s soft, slightly sweat-damp hair; and the repeated whispers of, “I’ve got you, Sammy, I’m here. I’ve got you,” until the echoes of Sam’s shouts drifted away, breaths evened out, and lines of his face smoothed over by the evaporation of his nightmare.

And still Dean would sit there, slowly rocking Sam until the sun came up and Sam stirred, close to but not quite awake. Only then would Dean reluctantly release his hold on Sam and settle back onto his own mattress, pretending to wake up right behind his brother. He’d give Sam a small smile as if to say “I slept like a baby,” then would watch as Sam got up and staggered to the bathroom before Dean flopped back down, utterly drained. He would only allow himself to lay there for a minute before getting up and stumbling to the kitchen to make coffee and breakfast, no longer kidding himself that Sam would take more than two bites before turning a bit green and pushing away his plate. No longer kidding himself, no, but nevertheless desperately hoping that today would be better, today would be _the_ day. It never was.

Needless to say, Dean was constantly exhausted, only picking up about two, maybe three hours of sleep every night before he was woken up by Sam having a nightmare. So he relied on daily afternoon naps. It became a routine for Dean, something he could grab on to in the midst of this massive shit storm. Every day, Dean ate lunch; Sam stared queasily at it. Dean cleaned up the dishes; Sam disappeared into the bathroom to make friends with the toilet. Then they headed into the living room and rifled through their movie selection, arguing about which one to watch. Arguing as if it mattered, as if they actually sat through the whole thing instead of always falling asleep ten or fifteen minutes in.

Dean always woke up from these naps with a crick in his neck and Sam’s head in his lap but feeling decidedly better, especially because Sam never had nightmares during these naps. At this point, Dean would gently but regretfully shake Sam awake. Sam would sit up groggily, look at the TV, and ask, “What’d I miss?” as if he really cared how the movie ended. Dean knew Sam was joking, knew no matter how bad Sam was feeling he’d always repeat that same lame joke every afternoon like it was the funniest thing in the world. And Dean would smile and laugh and cling to that joke like it was the last joke in the world. Because for them, maybe it was.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

One afternoon when Dean woke up, it felt different. He felt different. It felt like his lap was on fire. He looked down and—no, just Sam’s head was there, like always. It took him a few seconds to realize it was Sam who was burning up. He put a hand on Sam’s forehead and it felt like putting his hand on a light bulb that had been left on for too long. He removed his hand and grabbed Sam’s shoulders instead, shaking him gently, then more forcefully when he got no response from his brother.

“Sam! Dammit Sam, wake up!” Still no response. Dean felt Sam’s cheek, then pulled his hand away quickly, as though if he left it there too long it might burn him. Sam had been running a low-grade fever for months now, but it rarely spiked above 101°. He slid out from under Sam and ran to his room to get the thermometer. He came back and shoved it under Sam’s armpit and held his arm down tight against his body to get an accurate reading. When it beeped, Dean took it out and looked at the number. 105.2°.

 _Fuck_ , Dean thought, _fuck fuck fuck_. He ran to the bathroom and turned on the water in the tub all the way to cold. Then he ran to the kitchen, found a bucket to fill with ice, and brought it back to the bathroom. He dumped the ice into the rapidly-filling tub before hurrying back to the living room and grabbing Sam, dragging him off the couch and toward the sound of running water. God, he hated dragging Sam like that, like he was just a dead body or something. But Sam was huge, and Dean knew there was no way he could carry the limp form of his brother more than a few steps.

He got Sam to the bathroom, bent down to turn off the water, then focused his attention back on Sam. He stripped him of his socks, sweatpants, and the ever-present plaid shirt. He got his arms under Sam and heaved him up, barely getting him over the edge of the tub, making sure he didn’t drop him or accidentally smack his head against the porcelain. Dean’s clothes got drenched in the process but he didn’t care. Memories crashed into Dean from just months earlier, of having to do the exact same thing when he found Sam passed out on the floor of a hallway in the motel they were staying at. That was the same day they’d met Metatron. Dean quickly pushed those thoughts away; that angel didn’t belong here, didn’t deserve to be here, even just in memory.

He stayed with Sam, holding his face above the water until a few minutes later Sam’s eyes shot open and his limbs started flailing around, getting Dean even more soaked. He pulled Sam up into a seated position and got him to calm down. Sam was shaking, and Dean noticed dully that Sam wasn’t the only one.

“Hey, look at me,” Dean said, and Sam’s eyes glanced over. “Are you okay? Can you stand up?”

“Yeah,” Sam mumbled, teeth chattering. He gripped the edges of the tub and pushed himself unsteadily to his feet. Dean got out a big, fluffy towel and wrapped it around Sam’s shoulders, squeezing it shut tight around Sam’s torso.

“Come on,” Dean said, gripping Sam, helping him maintain his balance as he stepped out of the tub and onto the sopping bathmat. Dean grabbed another towel then led Sam down the hall to his room. He dried Sam off while Sam just stood there, shaking, never uttering a word. When Dean figured he’d gotten most of the water off his brother, he tossed the wet towel on the floor and wrapped the second one around Sam’s shoulders again. Sam still didn’t say anything, but gripped the towel so it wouldn’t slide off him.

Dean went over to the dresser, rooting around in the drawers until he pulled out some clothes. He went back over to Sam, hesitated, then held out the clothes. Sam didn’t look at them, just stared vacantly past Dean.

“Sam…” his voice cracked on the name. Sam finally looked at him but made no move to take the clothes from him. Dean sighed, dropped his arm, bent down, and helped Sam step out of his wet boxers. It’s not like Dean had never seen Sam naked before. With the way they lived, it was inevitable. But still, it was usually accidental, and Dean was usually standing halfway across the room, not bending down right beside him.

 _Whatever_ , Dean thought, and slid a dry pair of boxers up Sam. He bent back down and helped Sam into a fresh pair of sweats. Lastly, he removed the towel from Sam’s shoulders and got Sam’s arms and then head through the holes of a clean—and more importantly, dry—tee shirt.

“Hey. You with me?” Dean asked. Sam closed his eyes, said nothing, but gave a brief nod.

“Okay. Let’s, uh, let’s lay down. Come on,” said Dean. His brother moved with him towards the bed. Dean helped him under the covers, propped up some pillows so Sam could sit up, then whispered, “Be right back.” He returned a few minutes later with the thermometer and a bowl of soup. He set the soup down on the nightstand and stood over Sam, holding the thermometer expectantly. Sam just rolled his eyes and opened his mouth. Dean stuck it under Sam’s tongue and held it there, waiting. He decided not to tell Sam it had just been in Sam’s armpit; he didn’t think Sam would be too excited about having it in his mouth after that.

The thermometer beeped and Dean glanced at the number. 101.8°. Much better. He sighed with relief, then picked up Sam’s soup bowl and handed it to him. Sam took it and gave Dean a grateful smile. Dean sat down on the edge of the bed and watched Sam while he slowly ate the soup. It took a while, but Sam managed to get it all down, and there didn’t seem to be any danger of it coming back up. Dean took the empty bowl from Sam.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, and headed out of the room towards the kitchen. As he was rinsing the bowl out, he heard Sam enter the kitchen. Dean set the bowl in the sink and turned around.

“Sam. You should go back to bed…”

“Um, I’m a little too wired to sleep.”

“Dude, you just passed out on me. That’s the second time in three months that I’ve had to give you an ice bath.” Sam looked down apologetically.

“I’m sor—“

“Don’t you dare say you’re sorry,” Dean interrupted. “I’m not blaming you, it’s not your fault, and I’m not mad, okay? So stop apologizing. You didn’t do anything wrong.” Sam just hung his head. “Look,” said Dean softly, “do you want to watch another movie or something?” Sam shook his head.

“Actually, I’d rather go outside. I feel cooped up, like if I stay inside any longer I’m going to explode.”

“Okay,” said Dean, not sure that was the best idea but deciding not to argue about it. Sam went back to his room and returned wearing shoes and a jacket. Dean noticed he was maybe looking a little better, but…still not great.

They locked up the bunker and headed outside. It was warm but cloudy with a light breeze. There was a small creek that ran out behind the bunker, which Sam immediately turned in the direction of, Dean following silently behind him. The wind played across Dean’s face like a lover’s fingers, making Dean breathe deeply, trying to release some of the anxiety he’d been holding in.

When they got to the stream, Sam made a beeline toward the little wooden bench someone must have built a good thirty years ago. He sat down and Dean followed, glancing over at Sam, looking him up and down. Sam seemed to be okay, surprisingly. He definitely did not look like he had just been passed out with a high fever less than an hour before. Dean decided not to question it, just accept it and be grateful, although a thought pinched at the back of his mind, saying over and over again that it was just the calm before a storm. Dean pushed the nagging thought away, telling himself it was his own paranoia, not his (usually fairly accurate) gut instinct. Not this time.

They sat there on that old wooden bench, staring at the stream slowly trickling by. No words were spoken; none needed to be. Dean was lost in thoughts, memories of when he and Sam were kids and before they knew about the hunting, when they still moved around a lot but they saw it as an adventure. They would go out and explore each new place they landed at, usually coming back home with bruised knees, scraped elbows, and muddy feet.

Dean remembered one day in particular. They were staying at a cabin in some backwoods no-name place, further north than south but still just as unmemorable. Dean was eight and Sam was four. Their dad was taking a nap on the couch when Dean decided to take Sam out back where a little creek ran through. They played out there for hours, walking along the slippery stones, trying to catch frogs, splashing each other with water. When they got back to the cabin, completely drenched but with huge smiles on their faces, Dean was sure John would be furious. But John just looked at them and laughed, then helped them get cleaned up. It wasn’t very often that Dean saw his father laugh, especially when it came to his boys. Dean had held on tight to that memory, always hoping he could experience a happiness like that again with Sam.

After a while—it could have been ten minutes, it could have been two hours, Dean really didn’t know or care—Sam turned to him and smiled.

“You know, I could sit out here forever.”

“I wish we could, Sammy. I really wish we could.” Sam scooted closer to Dean until he was right up against his side. He laid his head on Dean’s shoulder and closed his eyes, a small smile playing at the corner of his lips. Dean tensed up. Okay, it’s not like he and Sam had ever been wigged out by touching each other. He knew they hugged a lot, plus other little stuff. But Sam was fucking _snuggling_ him. Dean had no idea how to react to this. He sat there for a minute, trying to get used to the idea of his brother using his shoulder as a pillow. Then Dean remembered Sam had been using his _lap_ as a pillow the last few weeks. _Shoulder can’t be worse than lap_ , Dean thought, relaxing, eventually finding his head resting against Sam’s. They sat like that, breathing in unison, until the sun started sinking below the trees, painting crimson and violet across the sky.

With the sun setting, it started to get cooler out, so when Dean felt Sam starting to shake a bit, he decided it was time to head back inside.

“Sam, want to go back in?”

“Yeah,” Sam answered sleepily. Dean didn’t want to move though. God, he wanted to stay out here forever, his head on Sam’s, Sam’s head on Dean’s shoulder, Sam’s warmth heating Dean through his jacket. He would die a happy man if he could die like this. (Though he’d prefer to wait a few years.) So they stayed like that until the sun had disappeared and the stars were blinking bright. Sam’s teeth were chattering so much it was making Dean’s face vibrate.

“Okay Sammy, it really is time to go in. I don’t want you to catch a cold on top of, you know, everything else.”

“All right,” Sam agreed. They got up and strolled slowly back towards the bunker, Sam still pressed tight against Dean’s side.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

That next week, Sam started looking a little bit better each day. Every evening they’d walk out to the stream, sit on that dilapidated bench, and watch the sunset. Dean felt like he was in some cheesy romance movie, but he never said anything. Sam enjoyed it; Sam was happy. And Dean secretly enjoyed it, too, although he never would admit it out loud; he could barely admit it to himself in the privacy of his own mind. But he had a feeling that Sam knew either way.

Dean found a garage sale close by and they went and bought a bunch of movies that they hadn’t already seen a hundred times. And they watched the hell out of those movies.

Towards the end of the week, Dean decided it was time he went to the store. They were rapidly running out of food, and though Sam didn’t say anything, Dean knew he was getting sick of eating soup.

“Hey, Sam,” Dean said, rummaging through the kitchen cabinets, “there’s like no food left. I’m gonna have to make a run to the store. Would you want to come?” Sam had been feeling up to doing more stuff this week, but it didn’t surprise Dean when Sam declined. Who in their right mind actually liked grocery shopping, even while _not_ being sick, or…whatever Sam was?

“Nah, I think I’ll just hang out here,” said Sam.

“Okay. Hey, you better not watch King Kong without me,” said Dean.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Sam said with an eye roll.

“Right. Well I’ll be back in an hour, unless the soccer moms decide to show up.”

“Okay…bye.”

Dean headed out to the Impala and drove over to the grocery store. He tried to hurry. He knew Sam was doing better, but he still felt uneasy about leaving him by himself for too long. Dean whipped through the aisles, grabbing things here and there, filling the cart as fast as possible. He even remembered to grab salad stuff for Sam. As he moved towards the checkout, he started to get antsy. _Damn soccer moms are fucking everywhere_ , he thought as he stared at the long lines snaking out into the store’s main aisle. He chose the closest and stood there waiting, foot tapping impatiently while he read some tabloid, something about which celebrities had the best and worst beach bodies. Dean snorted. He couldn’t believe people actually paid money for that crap.

He finally made it through the checkout, out to the parking lot and to his baby. He loaded up the Impala and took off, going a good twenty over the speed limit, trying to get back to the bunker as quickly as possible. Something in his gut didn’t feel right. Growing up as a hunter, he had learned to trust his instincts early on. And right now, his instincts were screaming at him.

He screeched to a halt in front of the bunker, not even bothering to grab the groceries from the back. He rushed to the door and slammed inside, yelling for his brother.

“SAM!” he shouted. He ran through the entryway, down the steps and through the control room, into the big library. No Sam. He tried the living room, the kitchen, and then Sam’s bedroom. Still no Sam. As he was hurrying back from Sam’s room, he noticed the light on in the bathroom. He pushed the door open, and his stomach dropped at what he saw.

Blood and bile filled the toilet, climbing up over the toilet seat and crawling across the floor to Sam, who was laying prone on the tiles. He hurried to Sam, bent down and grabbed his wrist, feeling for a pulse; it was weak, but it was there. Sam’s chest was rising and falling, so shallow that it was barely noticeable, and when Dean lowered his face to Sam’s mouth, he felt a small rush of air along his cheek. So Sam was definitely breathing, thank god.

“Sam!” Dean shook Sam’s shoulders. When Sam didn’t stir, Dean slapped Sam’s face lightly. Still no response. “SAM!” Dean shook him some more but Sam just laid there, eyes closed, breaths quiet.

“FUCK!” Dean practically screamed. He opened his phone and dialed 911. At this point, he didn’t know how to help Sam. Even though Sam wasn’t sick in the traditional sense, Dean knew it was time to involve some professionals. But before the operator could answer the call, Dean hung up. He took a breath. _Think_ , he told himself. He couldn’t have an ambulance coming to the bunker. Too many questions. He decided that if he could get Sam out to the Impala, he could get them to the hospital in about five minutes.

Dean slipped his phone back into his pocket and reached down, hooking his forearms under Sam’s armpits. He dragged Sam out of the bathroom and down the hall. Through the library. Through the control room. Up the stairs. Dean was sickeningly reminded of the scene in Cinderella when the mice were trying to get the key to Cinderella’s attic room and had to push it up all those stairs. They had just watched that movie the day before, and the memory felt like a slap to the face.

Dean focused his thoughts back on Sam and getting him outside to the car. It took all his strength plus the adrenaline now coursing through his body to get Sam up the stairs, out the door, back _up_ some more stairs, and then over and into the back seat of the car. Dean jumped into the front, started the ignition, and peeled out of there, tires screeching against the pavement. He raced down the road, foot pushing the gas pedal almost flush again the floor.

It only took him three minutes to get to the hospital.

He pulled up in the semi-circle right in front of the emergency entrance and jumped out of the car, running around to the other side where Sam was propped against the door.

“Somebody help me!” he yelled out, pulling Sam out of the back seat and leaning him against his body, trying to keep Sam upright while he staggered towards the entrance. A few seconds later four nurses were running through the doors towards Dean, gurney between them. They helped Dean lay Sam across it then buckled him down. They took off back inside, Dean running right alongside them, holding on to Sam’s arm.

They wheeled Sam into a room where more nurses and two doctors were scrambling around. One of the nurses grabbed Dean and said something, pushing him back through the doors and into the hall. The nurse said something again. Dean couldn’t hear her.

“Sir!” the nurse shook Dean’s shoulders, finally snapping him out of his fog. “Sir, you have to tell me what happened.”

“Um…I don’t know, I just came home and he was…” Dean stopped, trying to catch his breath. He didn’t remember when he had lost it.

“Sir, what happened?” the nurse asked again.

“He was just laying there, and there was blood and puke and…and I couldn’t get him to wake up,” said Dean. His voice kept cracking, like he was thirteen again and going through puberty.

“Here, let’s go sit down,” the nurse said softly. She led Dean over to the chairs in the lobby. She walked away for a moment, and when she came back she was holding a clipboard. “I need you to fill this out.” Dean just looked at her.

“I don’t want to fill out some stupid form, I want to see my brother!” he shouted.

“Sir, you need to calm down. We need to know more about your brother. The more we know about him, the better we can help him, okay?” Dean took a deep breath. He took another.

Finally, he nodded and took the clipboard from the nurse, glancing absently at her name card. Natalie. Dean looked back up at her. She was young, probably just out of nursing school, and cute. Fresh-faced, rosy-cheeked. In any other circumstance, Dean would be flirting with her, making her blush by this point. But right now, it was the last thing he was thinking about. The only thought running through his mind was Sam.

He looked down at the clipboard, eyes fuzzy, unable to focus. He dragged the back of his hand across them. When he brought his hand back down, it was wet. Dean was pretty sure he hadn’t been crying. Then a drop of water landed on the paper on the clipboard. Then another. No, not water. They were tears. He looked back over at the nurse. She was holding out a tissue for him. He took it gingerly and wiped at his eyes.

He looked back down at the paperwork and realized he could now make out the small black print, so he started filling it out. The nurse stayed beside him, silently handing him tissues. A few minutes later, a woman came out. She was holding a different clipboard, wearing scrubs, and had a stethoscope around her neck.

“Sir? I’m Dr. Ramirez. What’s your name?”

“Dean Winchester,” he managed to choke out, not even thinking to use a fake name.

“And that’s your brother that you brought in?”

“Yeah. Sam,” Dean answered.

“Well Mr. Winchester, we’ve got your brother stabilized, but it’s…it’s not looking very good.” Dean stood up abruptly.

“What do you mean, it’s not looking good?” he asked, voice low, gruff, scared.

“Well Mr. Winchester, your brother…he’s in a coma, and…he might not wake up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are ❤


	3. When Dying Looks Just Like Sleeping

The realization of what the doctor was saying hit Dean like a brick dropped from the Empire State Building. _Sam was in a coma. Fuck, SAM WAS IN COMA. And…and he might not wake up._ Dean felt his knees go weak and start to shake. His mind lashed around, trying to find something to hold on to, to anchor himself to, because there was _no fucking way he was fainting the in middle of a hospital hallway._ He heard the dim words of “Mr. Winchester? Mr. Winchester, are you okay?” _Of course_ he wasn’t fucking okay, _his brother was in a coma and he might not wake up._

“Mr. Winchester, can you hear me?” That’s right, the doctor. He’d been talking to the doctor. He latched on to the voice, then pushed it back hard as he remembered that _that_ was the voice that had just told him _Sam was in a coma and he might not wake up._ With those words slashing through his mind like a hot whip, he went down hard, blacking out before his body even hit the floor.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Dean came to, the sharp smell of antiseptic hitting his nose, the rough feel of cotton sheets that had been used and washed a thousand times before him grating over his skin. He opened his eyes and was met with the unforgiving glare of fluorescent lights. He squinted against the brightness. There was someone standing over him, a woman. Dean opened his eyes a little wider and realized it was the doctor. Sam’s doctor.

“Mr. Winchester…Dean,” his name tumbled out of her mouth too quickly, like she wasn’t sure she should be saying it. “Can you hear me?”

“Uh, yeah,” Dean croaked, confused. He catalogued his surroundings. He was laying on a bed, a hospital bed. There were a bunch of machines surrounding him, but only one was making sounds, mapping out the beats of his heart with a stead _beep beep beep_. He looked down and breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever had happened—damn, what the hell had happened?—no one had forced him into a nasty hospital gown. He was still fully clothed, complete with jacket, jeans, and boots.

“Dean,” the doctor—Dr. Ramirez, that was her name, Dean remembered—interrupted his thoughts. “Do you know what happened?”

“Um…” Dean hesitated, not quite remembering, trying hard to remember, realizing maybe he didn’t _want_ to remember.

“You had a panic attack,” she said. “You started hyperventilated and then you fainted. We brought you in here to monitor you.”

“Oh,” Dean was embarrassed. He did _not_ do panic attacks. “How long was I out?” he asked.

“About twenty minutes,” she replied. Dean thought back to what he’d been doing twenty minutes—seriously, how could he have forgotten everything? it’d only been twenty minutes—ago. Obviously he’d already been at the hospital, and he’d been talking to the doctor, and she’d been telling him something…

Everything came rushing back, crashing around him, suffocating him. Like he was under water in the middle of the ocean and he didn’t know which way was up, which way he needed to swim in order to break free and be able to breathe again.

His chest constricted and his breaths instantly quickened as he sat up suddenly.

“I have to go, I have to go see Sam—“ Dr. Ramirez laid a calm hand on his shoulder, cutting him off.

“Dean, if you don’t calm down, we’re going to have to sedate you. You need to control your breathing.” She took a big breath in, held it for a few seconds, then released it slowly, silently gesturing at him to follow her lead. And Dean sat there like that, matching his breaths to hers, for what felt like too long. He felt silly, and a little self-conscious, needing someone to help him with something so simple as fucking breathing. But it was working.

After a few minutes he felt calmer, more in control, and when he opened his mouth to speak, there was only the faintest wobble to his voice.

“I need to go see Sam now. Please,” he added. Dr. Ramirez scrutinized him for a moment, then gave him a sharp nod of her head. Dean pulled the heart rate monitor off the end of his finger, swung his legs over the edge of the bed, and got (mostly) steadily to his feet. He followed the doctor out of the room and down the hall to Sam’s.

He tiptoed behind the doctor into Sam’s room. There was an eerie calm to the room that was interrupted by the click-clacking of the doctor’s heels on the linoleum. Dean flinched. The sound didn’t belong in this room. No sound belonged in this room, save for the steady beeping of the machines telling him that Sam was still alive. _No sound_ , Dean thought, _until Sam wakes up and can add his own sounds to this place._ Those were the only sounds that mattered. _Sounds I might never hear again._ Dean pushed that thought away so fast he got mental whiplash. He didn’t want that thought to dig its claws into him, to take up residence in the pit of his stomach and the back of his mind and the walls of his heart. Besides, Sam had been in here less than two hours. Dean sure as hell was not about to lose hope. Not yet. _Not ever_ , he reminded himself.

The doctor cleared her throat. A soft sound, but not one Dean was prepared for. He flinched again. Then she started talking, her voice low and smooth but still grating against Dean’s ears.

“Your brother…it’s strange. His vital signs are a bit weak but still in the normal range, and except for being slightly dehydrated and mildly malnourished, there’s no physical damage that we can find. Even his brain seems to be functioning at a normal level. It’s almost as if…as if he just went to sleep and won’t wake up.”

“Which means?” Dean asked, hoping she’d get to the point faster, hoping she had something, _anything_ useful.

“Which means,” she continued, “as we have no idea what’s wrong with him, we have no idea how to treat him. The best we can do is monitor him, make sure nothing gets worse.” Dean gave a terse nod but said nothing. So she didn’t have anything useful. He didn’t really expect anything other than that, though, seeing as Sam’s deteriorating state was less of the medical and more of the supernatural variety.

Dean stole himself to calm his nerves before finally looked down at his brother, seeing him for the first time since he had half-carried, half-dragged Sam, unconscious, through the doors of this god-forsaken place.

There were tubes and needles and things Dean didn’t even know about coming everywhere from Sam. One arm held a feeding tube. The IV needle was nestled in the crook of his elbow on the other arm. The heart rate monitor encased one of Sam’s forefingers. An oxygen tube snaked up above his lips, right underneath his nose. And there were…things…coming from Sam’s head, little wires trailing out of that ridiculously long hair of his up to a different machine Dean had never seen before. He looked at the screen, couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

“That monitors his brain activity,” the doctor supplied, seeing him staring at the machine.

He wanted to look away. God, he wanted to look at anything except Sam. But he made himself focus on Sam, only Sam. He had to be there for his brother, he had to be strong for his brother. Even if Sam didn’t know. Because _Sam was in a coma_ , how could he know?

The doctor cleared her throat again—god, Dean wished she’d stop doing that—then spoke softly.

“If you don’t have any other questions, I’ll get out of your hair. And if you need anything, just page the nurse.” Dean heard sympathy in her voice, and an undertone of something else, something that sounded like pity. It didn’t make Dean feel any better.

Dr. Ramirez didn’t wait for Dean to respond, or even look at her. He was in a trance, unable to peel his eyes from his brother. She strode quietly out of the room and shut the door with a soft click.

Dean didn’t know how long he stood there. Time ebbed and flowed around him, unaffecting, not meaning anything to him. He had tunnel vision for Sam, who was laying there motionless with all those stupid tubes and wires trailing across his body. Eventually, Dean became aware of numbness in his legs. He’d been standing in the same spot for so long his leg had fallen asleep. Dean didn’t realize his legs could fall asleep while he was still standing on them, but that thought had barely licked at his consciousness before he noticed the chair sitting by the head of Sam’s bed. He decided to relocate there.

As he uprooted himself and moved towards the chair, a sharp tingling sensation shot up his legs. It made Dean think about how Sam liked when his leg or arm or something fell asleep, how he liked the tingling sensation it made when he finally moved and it started to wake up. “It’s like a really weird, intense massage,” Sam had told Dean. Dean had told Sam he needed to lay off whatever he’d been smoking.

Dean idly thought that he didn’t remember where or when (or why, for that matter) he and Sam had talked about this. This stupid piece of useless information that Dean absolutely loved knowing. It was just one of those things Dean knew about Sam, one of those things on the never-ending list of stuff they just _knew_ about each other.

It felt like ages before he made it to the chair. He sat down heavily, eyes never leaving his brother. He reached out a tentative hand, hovering above Sam’s own, before he finally grabbed it. He wasn’t sure what to expect. He thought Sam’s skin might be burning up, harboring the vestiges of the near-constant fever Sam had had the last few months. Or maybe he braced himself for the cold, lifeless feeling of a dead body, like all those dead bodies they had examined in morgue after morgue across the country while working on cases. What he didn’t expect was for Sam’s hand, his skin, to feel so normal, the temperature of it almost matching Dean’s exactly. It really was as though Sam was just asleep.

Dean grasped Sam’s hand tighter and sat there in silence, his eyes tracing up and down Sam’s body and face. He looked peaceful, the exact opposite of how he had looked every night during his nightmares.

Dean prayed to an absent god, prayed like he didn’t want to but this was for Sam, and he didn’t know what else to do. He prayed that Sam was sleeping peacefully, and not stuck in some hellish nightmare that Dean couldn’t see from the outside, like that one time with Bobby and the crazy kid with the African Dream Root. He prayed that when—not if _, when_ , he reminded himself forcefully—Sam woke up, he would not be sick anymore. He prayed that Sam would make it through this, that they would make it through this together. He prayed hard, frantic and desperate and wrecked. He prayed like his life depended on it, because it did. Sam was his life. If Sam didn’t pull out of this…Dean didn’t want to finish that thought. He didn’t have to. He knew exactly what would happen to him if Sam died, and it involved a bottle of Jack, a letter to Garth, and his pistol. He had neither good nor bad feelings about this. It just _was_. Dean wasn’t aware when he drifted off to sleep, Sam’s hand still clutched in his.

He was woken up in the middle of the night by a nurse pushing a second bed into the room for Dean. He gave a small smile of appreciation and the nurse returned it, then left as quickly as she came, never uttering a word. Dean got up and moved the chair he’d been sleeping in so he could push the second bed against the side of Sam’s. He crawled into it, reached his arm over the edge to find Sam’s hand again. He clung to it like someone clinging to a life preserver in the middle of a stormy sea. He clung to it like it was his only anchor to this world. He clung to it because if he didn’t, if he let go, he was scared that Sam would just float away.

He fell back into a fitful sleep. Worst-case scenarios penetrated his mind, twisting and turning, lapping at his dreams. He woke no less exhausted than when he had fallen asleep. But Dean still hadn’t let go of his desperate hold on Sam.


	4. Sam I Am

Usually when Sam had a nightmare, it involved running. Lots of running. This time, he was climbing a tree. The tree was never ending; he had no idea how long he’d been climbing, and when he looked down, he couldn’t see the ground. Above him, the branches reached up and out, blotting out the sky and the wind and anything else that could give him some sense of orientation. He wasn’t sure why he was climbing. He felt a sense of urgency, but different from the one that usually accompanied his regular dreams (nightmares), but he couldn’t see anyone or anything around him that might be chasing him. Really, though, the thing that made him absolutely sure that this was a nightmare was that Dean was nowhere to be found.

Sam wanted to wake up. Physically, he felt better than he had in months and months, and as much as he enjoyed that relief, it was not worth it, would never be worth it, if it meant being asleep and away from his only family, his brother, the only person that mattered to him. Many people, if caught in a bad dream, would find a way to force themselves awake. Sam could let go of the tree right now and fall down, down, waking up only an instant before hitting the ground. He knew he couldn’t actually do that though, because you could die in dreams, and things that kill you in dreams can make you just as dead as if they’d killed you in real life. He’d have to find a different way to wake up. 

And he knew this time he’d have to find it. Dean wouldn’t be able to yell and shake him out of this nightmare, because this was different. The nightmares he’d been having the last month or two were nothing like this. Those nightmares were terrifying, but they also only lasted a few minutes. The first few times after they’d happened, Dean had asked him what they were about. What on earth could make Sam so afraid? Sam refused to tell Dean. He hoped Dean thought that he couldn’t remember the nightmares, but he never bothered to outright lie to Dean about it. Dean could always tell when Sam was lying. Sam could usually tell when Dean was lying too, though. So Sam just omitted. 

What happened in those nightmares…there were no monsters nor madmen; not even death made an appearance. It was just Sam, Sam running as fast as possible, not away from something but towards someone. Towards Dean. Sam running, with his shredded heart on his sleeve and he didn’t know why it was there or how it got so torn up, all he knew was that it hurt so badly, and that he couldn’t stop running, couldn’t even slow down. If he did, it would all be over; he’d be worse than dead. So he ran, with Dean far ahead of him; and Sam, despite his extra-long legs and strong muscles and his daily workouts _outside_ of monster hunting, wasn’t catching up to Dean. He was, in fact, losing ground. When he noticed this, he panicked and began to call out to Dean, desperate and ragged and shameless. He never knew what happened next, because that is when he always got woken up by Dean, the real Dean, the one who would never run away from him like that. 

He still couldn’t tell his brother the details of the recurring nightmare. Sam always believed that dreams had real significance, and dreams that happened more than once held an even greater meaning that needed to be discovered. Maybe a bit new-agey, even by his standards, but that didn’t make it wrong. And thus, Sam decided to leave Dean out of it until he could decipher its meaning. He would leave Dean out of it because Dean would just brush it off, saying, “Come on, Sammy, you know I’d never run away like that, not from you.” And the discussion would be over, but the dream would still be there, waiting for him every night, to wrap its suffocating limbs around Sam, to dig its claws into him, to make him feel a new kind of pain every single night, if only for a few minutes. 

During the naps he took in the afternoon, the ones where Dean inadvertently got used as a pillow, Sam slept much better, but he never told Dean why. For how much Dean liked to drink, he sure was a stickler about any other mind-altering substances. So Sam didn’t tell Dean about the pills – pain pills, mostly, and some sleeping pills. They didn’t help during the night, but when he was awake during the day they dulled the wretched screams of his muscles and joints so that he only felt like a partially-used piñata, as opposed to one already smashed open and gutted out, the candy littering the ground. The sleeping pills did the same for his mind—the memories of the trials, and even some things before, that were so real they were nearly hallucinations, couldn’t crawl back into his head, back into the dark corners and blank spaces they usually resided in, if just for a little while. 

What Sam didn’t want to admit to himself, though, was that the pills were not a long-term solution. They were barely a short-term solution. It had been less than two months and already he’d had to triple the doses he was taking. He had hoped that the pills would sustain him long enough for he and Dean to find something that would help him, but at this rate, it looked like he might end up accidentally overdosing before they came across any useful information. 

And here, in this weird nightmare that was nothing like any of the others, Sam had a sinking feeling that that’s exactly what had happened.


	5. The Secret Life of Sam Winchester

 

Dean woke to the sunlight streaming in through the crappy paper blinds and a nurse bustling around the room.

“Morning, sunshine!” the nurse said, somehow managing not to sound cheesy or annoying. He was a big guy and his voice sounded like it belonged to someone at least 50% less gruff-looking. On his nametag, Marcus was printed in bold black letters.

“Uh, hi…” Dean replied, half-asleep.

“The boss wants to talk to you,” Marcus said, checking Sam’s chart.

“The boss?” Dean asked, still trying to shake the fuzz from his brain and from the previous night’s memories.

“Yep. Dr. Hernandez got some blood tests back early this morning, said she had a lead,” the nurse said, in an almost conspiratorial whisper. Dean thought that Marcus must watch too many cop shows, but said nothing. Real detectives, and even real fake detectives like he and Sam were, never whispered conspiratorially.

“Well, where is she?” Dean asked, sitting up, instantly more alert. “Does she know what’s wrong with Sam? Can she finally treat him?”

“She didn’t tell me the specifics, but she’ll be in in just a moment,” Marcus replied, just as the door opened and the doctor walked in.

“Good morning, Marcus,” the Dr. Hernandez said.

“Morning, doc,” said Marcus, then gave Dean a nod and small salute before leaving the room.

Dr. Hernandez turned to Dean. “So, Mr. Winchester—“

“Just call me Dean,” he said tiredly.

“Okay, Dean,” she continued, “where you aware of any medicine, prescription or otherwise, that your brother was taking regularly?” She barely managed to keep the question from sounding like an accusation.

“Just over the counter pain meds, I guess,” Dean replied. “No prescriptions, though. Why?”

“We found high levels of oxycodone and hydromorphone in his blood. Really high levels. We also found moderate amounts of benzodiazepine and zolpidem, which would not be too much of a concern except for the fact that it’s been used in conjunction with the painkillers. Does your brother have a history of substance abuse?”

Dean just sat there, shocked. He and Sam had always kept a stash of high-grade painkillers, but they only used them when absolutely necessary. Dean had not checked their first aid kit in months, since they hadn’t been hunting recently. He could barely give thought to the idea of Sam using them. _Abusing_ them. He knew Sam was in pain, but he thought the majority of it was mental, not physical.

“No, he doesn’t have a history of that,” Dean said. “But…” he hesitated, then decided to be somewhat straightforward with the doctor, because at this point, Sam needed more help than what Dean was able to give by himself. “Well, my brother’s been having some pain issues the last few months, although I thought that it was affecting him more mentally than physically.”

Dr. Hernandez studied him for a moment. Dean swore he could see a trace of pity on her face. “Dean, many addicts start taking painkillers for a very legitimate and innocent reason: they’re in physical pain. But when the abuse begins, it’s usually because the person has some emotional or psychological pain. It stops being about the physical pain.”

Dean was only half-listening to her words. “Look, doc, at this point it doesn’t matter if my brother was going a little overboard on the pain meds or not, because he’s still in a coma. Do you know what happened, and do you know how to fix it?”

“He most likely overdosed,” Dr. Hernandez said gently. “Whether it was purposeful or not—”

“No!” Dean rose from the chair, muscles tense. “Sam would not try to…Sam would never… He would _not_ do that.” He knew Sam, and as long as they were together, as long as there was still a fighting chance, he was positive that Sam would hold onto life—onto _Dean_ —with a steel grip. He took a deep breath, trying to steady his nerves and calm his anger. “What can you do for him?”

“It’s too late to pump his stomach, but we did give him some charcoal. It will help absorb any pill remnants not yet digested, and will keep his liver from having to process them. Other than that, we just have to wait. Unfortunately with overdoses, the recovery depends on whether or not the person’s body can process the substance without shutting down. It’s up to him.”

Dean clenched his jaw. He was angry at everything and everyone. He was mad at the doctor for not getting the tests done immediately. He was mad at Sam for doing this to himself. Mostly, though, he was mad at himself for not seeing what was happening right in front of him. He _knew_ Sam. He should have known that there was something going on, something more than just the aftereffects of the trials.

“Dean, I suggest you go home and at least get a shower, maybe try to get some sleep in your own bed,” said Dr. Hernandez. “I promise it will make you feel better. Besides, we probably won’t know anything for another twenty-four hours.”

“What if something happens?” Dean asked, terrified of leaving his brother alone, even under the supervision of a whole hospital.

“If there’s any change at all in your brother’s condition, we’ll call you immediately.”

“Okay, yeah, I’ll think about it,” Dean said, not really meaning it. He went back to staring at Sam. Sam’s body laying lifeless in the bed. Sam’s body connected to too many tubes and wires to count. Sam, whose only indication of being alive was the heart monitor, an incessant beeping on the opposite side of Sam’s bed. _Sam._

“I’ll get out of your hair now,” Dr. Hernandez said, and turned to go. As the door clicked shut, Dean just sat there, completely and utterly numb.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Over the next few hours, Dean’s thoughts went from numb to helpless to scrambling. Even if—no, not if, _when_ —Sam woke up, he would still have to face all the damage done by the trials. Dean was finished wasting time shuffling through the useless information stored in the bunker, aimlessly searching and failing to find anything that would help Sam. The Men of Letters had nothing; he would have to go to a different source.

He didn’t have many options. Dean knew there were very few beings of the supernatural world that truly had the juice to heal Sam. Some demons, such as the crossroads ones, could do it; but Dean had been down that road before. Demons were assholes, and they made shitty one-sided deals. Besides, he and Sam weren’t exactly in the good graces of _any_ demon considering they had just tried to permanently lock all the black-eyed bastards in Hell. Another option Dean had was the angels. He was sure angels would also be capable of healing Sam. However, angels were arguably even _bigger_ assholes than demons. Plus, Dean had never made a deal with one, and had no idea what it might entail. Honestly, he wasn’t even sure he could find an angel to make a deal like this. Besides, angels were notoriously self-serving and manipulative. He would not put Sam’s fate in their hands.

Dean thought hard, scanning his memories and knowledge for any other person or thing that could help Sam. He could only think of one who definitely had enough power _and_ who might deal somewhat fairly. Dean was nervous, though. He was never quite sure what Death viewed as being fair.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Dean left the hospital and headed back to the bunker. He figured it would be a good idea to take a shower and get a few hours of sleep before setting everything up. What he was about to do was dangerous, and he wanted to be as alert as possible.

Dean walked into the bunker and slammed the door shut as hard as possible, his pent-up anger and frustration not from just the last two days but the last two months suddenly spilling out. He leaned against the balcony railing, head in his hands as anxiety and fear flowed through his body. He only had one shot at this, and Sam’s life—as well as his own—all hinged on the next two hours.


	6. Let's Have a Chat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this chapter is pretty short, but it felt like the right stopping point, plus I just needed to get something up. I think I finally broke out of my writing funk a little so the next update should definitely not take three weeks again. I'm already working on chapter seven and if my writing continues at this rate it should be up in the next two or three days. Thanks for sticking with me :)
> 
> Also, many _many_ thanks to [cyncitymojo](http://archiveofourown.org/users/cyncitymojo). You know what you did ;)  
>  (Literally saved me and this fic.)

Not for the first time since they’d found the Men of Letters bunker, Dean was beyond grateful for their new home. The information it contained had already proven to be invaluable, but this time…well, this time, it was personal.

Besides, Dean really wasn’t in the mood to kill himself just to get four minutes of facetime with Death, and there was no way in hell he was going to use the binding spell that Crowley had given them two years prior. Dean knew that asking this type of favor was a long shot, and he wasn’t going to eliminate the very slim chance of Death helping by binding the Horseman right off the bat. No, Dean planned to simply summon it here then beg, plead, offer lots of tasty junk food, and hope that Death was in a giving mood.

The summoning spell was simple enough, requiring only a handful of ingredients that they had readily available as well as a few drops of Dean’s own blood. Actually, the food part was trickier than the spell; Dean wanted the best of the best but he didn’t have the time or the resources to get pizza from New York or Tex-Mex from Texas. He thought long and hard before realizing he was being an idiot; Kansas City was known for barbeque, of course, which meant almost every city in Kansas—even the smaller, no-name towns—had at least one excellent barbeque joint, and Lebanon was no exception. Dean was just glad it was the in the middle of the day and the restaurant was open so that he didn’t have to wait another twelve hours. He wasn’t sure how long Sam could hold on, but every second that ticked by filled him with more anxiety and dread. It was time to go to work.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

“Hello, Dean.”

Hearing those two words spoken to him in that voice for the fourth time in his life still sent shivers down Dean’s spine.

Dean wouldn’t categorize the Fourth Horseman as a monster, at least not in the same way he would werewolves and vampires and rugarus and dragons. But he was a supernatural creature who, for however calm his demeanor, could probably kill anyone and everyone with just a snap of his fingers. He was both the most unassuming and most terrifying creature that Dean had ever crossed paths with, and the unusual combination only added to the gentle and silent danger constantly emanating from Death.

“Hi, Death. I mean, hello, Sir,” Dean tried not to stutter. Sure, he knew that Death had no doubts about Dean’s uncertainty and fear in front of him but he tried to steady his voice anyway; it was the difference between backing away slowly from a bear and rolling over and showing his stomach: he was probably screwed either way, but why make it easier on the bear?

They were in the library, and Dean had place the pulled pork sandwich, sweet potato tots, onion rings, and large Coke on the table in front of where Death had appeared.

“So, you found a way to talk to me without having to die first.” It wasn’t a question, and Dean didn’t bother to respond. “Why am I here, Dean?” Death asked before sitting down and taking a sip through the straw, then picking up the sandwich.

“I need a favor,” Dean replied, and Death froze, sandwich hovering an inch from his open mouth before he lowered it.

“Let me guess…it’s Sam.”

“He’s in a coma. He’s probably dying, and he’s not supposed to. He stopped the trials, he should have been okay! But he’s not. We were trying to do something good, you know? Put all the demons back in hell and lock them there. But Sam would have had to die, and I couldn’t—”

“You couldn’t lose him,” Death finished.

“We couldn’t lose _each other_ ,” Dean correctly.

Death sighed. “When are you two going to learn? You cannot escape death forever.”

“We’re not trying to. Sir,” Dean added quickly. “But Sam doesn’t deserve this. His whole life, all he’s ever tried to do is good. Even when he was royally screwing it up or going way of the rails, his intentions were always pure. And he’s more than made up for his mistakes! Hell, it was barely even his fault that Lucifer got out a few years ago, yet his soul spent almost two centuries down there in the Cage. Hasn’t he had enough?” Dean finished with a shout, his voice cracking at the end.

“Believe it or not, Dean, I agree with you on that point. However, if Sam does die this time, his soul will go straight to heaven, not back to hell. So I have to ask…why are you so afraid of me?”

Dean gaped in shock at Death’s question. Why was he so afraid? Why _wasn’t_ he afraid?!

“No offense, Sir, but…you’ve taken almost everyone from me and my brother. Our parents, Bobby, Jess, people we try to save, people we do save but who still die not long after…”

“I don’t take them, Dean. I _can_ kill, obviously, but I don’t. I collect their souls and help them transition to the correct afterlife. I will be here until the end of time, and even after I’m gone, things— _people_ —will continue to die. It’s the natural order, and while I understand it is often painful, both physically and emotionally, dying is not inherently bad. Modern society has twisted it to seem that way, but humans weren’t always like that. They viewed death as the beginning of something new and good, _not_ the end of everything meaningful.” Dean scoffed and Death stood up suddenly, glaring sharply at Dean.

“Don’t you understand? You are looking at me all wrong. I’m neither good nor evil, I just _am_. I am inevitable. Don’t treat me as your so-called monsters to hunt or angels to hate. I may hover on the edges of your life, waiting patiently, incessantly, but _I am_ _fair_ , Dean. Which is why,” he said, voice softening slightly as he sat back down and dragged an onion ring through ketchup, “I am willing to help Sam. For a price, of course.”

Dean blinked in surprised. “Yes, anything! Thank you. Thank you so much,” he said quickly before Death changed his mind.

“Don’t thank me, just do what I ask of you and don’t renege on our deal, or Sam will slip back into his coma.”

Dean swallowed a few times, fear forming at what Death’s request would be.

“I promise,” he finally said. “What do you need me to do?” Death looked Dean in the eyes, his expression inscrutable. Dean clenched his fingers around his thighs to stop his hands from shaking.

“I will heal Sam, and you _both_ will stop hunting completely for ten years.”


	7. Whatever It Takes

“What the… Ten years? _Ten_?!” Dean half-sputtered, half-shouted as he registered Death’s request. “But-but…hunting’s what we do, it’s who we are!”

“Ten years is not forever, Dean,” Death pointed out.

“I’m aware.” Dean tried not to grit his teeth in annoyance. “But it’s not an insignificant amount of time either, and Sam and I aren’t twenty-two anymore.” He sucked in a breath, bracing himself for his next question, already aware that it was a bad idea but unable to stop himself from asking. “Can’t you make it, like… _three_ years or something?”

“Are you really trying to negotiate with me?” Death’s voice had turned to ice and Dean snapped his mouth shut on the argumentative words about to spill forth. “Because, as I recall, _you_ summoned _me_. _You_ asked _me_ for help. _You_ told _me_ that you would pay the price, no matter what it was. And I know you don’t have a plan B, Dean. The only reason you would have called me here is if I was your last resort, and, well…” He spread his arms out and looked around to drive home his point.

Dean let out the breath he hadn’t been aware he’d been holding. “I’m sorry. And your offer is more than fair. I was just—surprised, I guess. Like I said, hunting’s all we’ve ever known, and sometimes it’s hard to imagine a life without it. Without helping people.”

Death rolled his eyes but let out a small sigh of resignation. “Again, Dean, it’s not forever. And hunting is not the only way to help people.”

“I’ll be forty-four in ten years. That’s old for a hunter. And Sam will be—”

“Alive,” Death cut in pointedly. This time the sigh came from Dean.

“Alive,” he echoed, closing his tired eyes and rubbing them.

“I’m not sure why I’m doing this for you,” the Horseman continued, “but what if I told you that the ten years might be cut short?” Dean’s eyes snapped open at that. Before he could ask, Death began to elaborate. “I’ll check in on you and Sam from time to time. If I think you’re ready to start hunting again, then I will consider our contract to be fulfilled and you and your brother may return to hunting, if you choose to do so.”

Dean hesitated, sure there was a catch somewhere. But Death, though he often spoke with vague insinuations and puzzling generalities, never had a hidden agenda. So Dean decided he might as well just ask.

“Is there a catch? If you cut our deal short and we get to start hunting before the ten years are up.”

“No.”

“Then…what do you get out of it?” Dean asked, then grimaced at how the question was worded. Death seemed unperturbed, though.

“Personal entertainment,” he said simply. “As many times as you two have messed with the natural order of things, I cannot deny that you and Sam make the world a bit more…interesting.”

Dean pushed away the image of Death sitting in a huge armchair, eating popcorn and watching the Winchester Reality Show on a 70-inch flat screen.

“Okay,” he said. “How will this work?”

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Dean paced thoughtfully as Death sat eating and patiently explaining his plan.

“You’re not…going to wipe our memories, are you?” the hunter asked hesitantly.

“Of course not,” Death said. “I want to see that you can hold up your end of the deal, that you have the willpower not to hunt even when you have all the memories and knowledge that you do right now.”

“Okay...” Dean was relieved that he wouldn’t be forced to forget such a big part of who he was, but that brought up a different problem. “But…even if Sam and I manage not to intentionally hunt, what about all the hunters we know, all the monsters and angels and demons we know that could come looking for us, or even the occasional monsters we just happen to stumble across? Because not hunting for ten years, I think we can manage, if we have control over the whole situation. But having to constantly run away from this stuff because it follows us around? That’s going to be—”

“Impossible, yes. Lucky for you, I can do more than just reap souls.” Dean paused his pacing to face Death but remained silent as the Horseman continued. “I will build up a kind of extensive warding around you and Sam. Not only will it hide you from any supernatural creatures being able to locate you, it will also work as a sort of compulsion spell. Any time anyone or anything involved with something supernatural tries to find you, contact you, et cetera, they will suddenly remember something else that is very urgent and be compelled to attend to whatever that is, essentially forgetting about you temporarily.”

“Okay…um, could you give an example?”

“A fellow hunter needs help on a case. They start to call you or Sam to ask for help but at the last moment decide to call someone else instead. A demon is trying to find you because you killed their friend but every time they begin to work on tracking you they get distracted by the sudden urge for a Starbucks frappucino or whatever,” Death supplied with an eye roll.

“And that will work? For ten years?” Dean asked skeptically.

“If you’re giving me that look because you’re remembering Sam’s soul wall, you’d do well to also recall,” Death said icily, “that I was _not_ the one who destroyed it. Your so-called angel friend made that foolish decision. Besides, trying to keep part of a soul hidden from its host—especially a soul as strong and insistent as Sam’s—is much more difficult than keeping a few people out of your way.”

“That actually sounds pretty straightforward,” Dean mused. pushing away his ever-present bitterness over Sam’s soul debacle. “But…well, I know that Sam and me, we don’t exactly have a lot of friends, but the few we do have are hunters. Does this mean we’re just not going to be able to see them or talk to them for a decade?”

“If you decide to visit a friend, the compulsion spell placed over you will expand to them while in your vicinity.”

“Okay,” Dean sighed, relieved. “And our friends that aren’t human…?”

“Like Castiel, you mean? Well, I know you haven't spoken with him in a while, so maybe you won’t be upset when I tell you that during this time, no, you will not remain in contact with him—or with any supernatural being, even the ones you view as allies.”

Dean’s knee-jerk reaction was to protest, but as he tried to think of a reasonable argument, he realized he couldn’t find one. His mind ran through all the crap Castiel had pulled over the last three years: pulling Sam out of the cage without his soul; pretending he didn’t even know how Sam had gotten out of hell; chasing after purgatory; letting the Leviathans in; breaking Sam’s wall (and again, that memory still made Dean want to tear the angel in half just on principle)…

Apparently, the list was getting pretty damn long. Dean decided that maybe this would end up being for the best.

“Okay. I can live with that,” he finally agreed.

“Good. Now, I suggest you go see about your brother. He should be waking up soon.” And with that, Death was gone.

Dean tore up the stairs and out of the bunker, hurling himself into the Impala and peeling out and away from his home towards the hospital.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Dean was speed-walking down the hospital hall when his phone rang. He ignored it in favor of stepping inside Sam’s room. The door was open and there was a little commotion and a lot of beeping coming from the people and the machines surrounding Sam’s bed.

“What’s happening?” Dean practically had to shout to be heard; a doctor turned towards him and, to Dean’s surprise, her eyes lit up.

“Mr. Winchester, so glad you’re here! I believe a nurse was just trying to get ahold of you.”

“Hi. Um, who’re you?” Dean was momentarily distracted by the woman because, although she looked familiar, he had definitely never met her before, and to say he got a little paranoid with strangers being around a comatose Sam when he wasn’t there to keep watch was an understatement.

“Oh, I’m so sorry! I’m Dr. Mona Mitchell.”

“Um, I thought…I only met Dr., uh, Ramirez and…Dr. Hernandez.”

“Right, of course. Dr. Ramirez is one of our ER doctors, so you probably haven’t seen her since you brought Sam in. Dr. Hernandez is Sam’s attending physician but she is off today and she asked me specifically to take over for her.” Dr. Mitchell offered Dean an unusually chirpy smile that stabbed him with annoyance; no one should smile like that when his still-unconscious brother was laying in a hospital bed five feet away.

Dean squeezed his eyes closed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He could feel a killer headache forming, and he had trouble getting all the questions he wanted to ask in order from most important to least important. Instead, they all spilled out of him at once.

“Okay, hi, nice to meet you. Why did the other doctor ask for you specifically? And is Sam okay? I haven’t seen him with more than two people in the room since I brought him in. And, no offense, but your weirdly good mood is kind of grating considering you’re literally standing right in front of my brother— _who is in a coma_. And what is with all the fucking beeping?!” he blurted out, throwing his hands up in frustration. His eyes danced from the doctor to each of the three nurses and back to the doctor again, offering them all hard, distrustful glares.

“Dean…can I call you Dean?” the doctor asked, focusing his attention back on her. His outburst hadn’t done anything to discourage the large and genuine smile on her face. At Dean’s nod of permission, she continued. “Hi, Dean, nice to meet you to. Dr. Hernandez asked me to look after Sam today because she trusts me, I’m guessing. And I’m not a bad doctor myself, although Lana—Dr. Hernandez—does have four years of experience on me.” Dean gave her a strange look, and she laughed lightly. “She’s also my sister, although you wouldn’t be able to tell from our personalities, I’m sure.

“And Sam is better than okay. About ten minutes ago, all the machines in his room started going a little haywire. It looks like your brother has decided that he’s done being in a coma and really wants to wake up.” She offered another bright smile.

“So why isn’t he awake?” Dean asked.

“Well, when his brainwave functions skyrocketed so quickly, I had to put him partially under to make sure he didn’t wake up too quickly. That kind of abrupt change most likely would have been an enormous shock to his system, causing more harm than good. So we’re easing him out of it. He should be awake in the next four to six hours, I believe. Although, he’s really fighting it, so it may be sooner than that.”

“And…he’s okay?”

“We’ll need to run some tests when he wakes up, but that fact that he _is_ waking up—and all on his own—is extremely promising.” Dean nodded and sent a silent thanks out to Death.

“Well, how about we get out of your hair for a little while?” Dr. Mitchell smiled as the nurses walked out of the room. “If Sam wakes up and he’s disoriented or out-of-it, that’s completely normal, so don’t worry. Call if you need anything.” She offered a quick wave before leaving, shutting the door behind her.

Dean dragged a chair closer to the bed and collapsed onto it, his hand automatically reaching for Sam’s.

“Gotta wake up now, Sammy. Everything’s gonna be okay.” Dean carded his fingers through his brother’s hair and tiredly dropped his head down onto the mattress by Sam’s hip. His plans to talk to Sam, to stay awake until Sam woke up were abandoned the moment Dean’s eyelids blinked closed. He drifted off into a fitful sleep; he knew he wouldn’t believe Sam was okay until he could see those bright hazel eyes and hear a voice come from that smartass mouth for himself.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

“Dean?” The name came out low and scratchy and timid, but Dean _knew_ that voice and it pierced straight through his exhaustion, causing him to bolt up suddenly, alert and awake. The change in position made his head swim for a minute, but when the dizziness subsided and he opened his eyes, two wide, glassy hazel ones were staring back at him.

“Hey, Sammy.” He couldn’t help but grin at his brother.

“Hey, yourself,” Sam rasped, and Dean reached for a cup of water on the table by the bed. He brought the straw up to Sam’s lips and Sam slapped his hands away, taking the cup from Dean and into his own shaking grip. “Not an invalid,” he muttered before taking a long sip.

“Go slow,” Dean warned and was rewarded with one of Sam’s patented bitch faces and an eye roll.

“You act like I’ve never been laid out in a hospital on the verge of death,” Sam joked. Except it wasn’t actually a joke, and they both knew it. He took another sip then brought the cup down to rest against the mattress. “How bad?”

Dean closed his eyes, wishing his brother hadn’t asked but knowing he couldn’t lie. Sam deserved to know the whole truth, and it wasn’t like he wouldn’t immediately find out once Dean explained the deal he made. But first, he had to clear a few thing ups.

“You were in a coma, Sam. Because of an _overdose_.” He couldn’t hold back the anger that momentarily flashed through his eyes, but he kept his tone low and even. “Wanna tell me what that was about?” Sam had looked away and Dean knew he was embarrassed, but he wasn’t going to let his brother wave this one off as if it were nothing.

“I’m not going anywhere and we’re not talking about anything else until you tell me why,” Dean said firmly after Sam still refused to even look at him. It took a few more minutes before Sam finally replied, head still turned to face away from Dean.

“It was an accident, obviously,” he growled defensively. Dean let out a frustrated sigh.

“Sam, you are the smartest person I’ve ever met. So how, exactly, do you manage to _accidentally_ take too many pills?” Sam’s head snapped around and there was fire in his eyes as he glared at Dean.

“Because, when your blood feels like its boiling and your muscles feel like they are continuously ripping themselves apart and stitching themselves back together just to do it again, and when your mind feels like it’s being drowned in scalding black tar, well, it’s a little hard to remember if you already took two pain pills or not!” he snarled. Dean blinked in shock.

“You never told me it was that bad,” he said quietly. Sam snorted.

“So you could freak out even more? So that you could, what, make a deal or—” His eyes widened as he saw a flicker of guilt pass over Dean’s face. “Son of a bitch, you made a deal anyways, didn’t you?!”

“You were practically braindead, Sam! And before you freak out, nobody is dying and nobody is going to hell, okay? It’s, uh…well, it’s probably the best deal either of us has ever cut, so…” Dean shrugged and Sam eyed him suspiciously. “Oh, don’t give me that look,” he snapped. “You act like you’re surprised when you knew from the beginning how this would go. You know I’d do whatever it takes to keep you with—to keep us together, _alive_!” Sam’s eyes softened slightly. “And like I said, nobody is dying, okay?”

“Who?”

“Um…”

“Dean! _Who?_ ”

“Death,” Dean said with a wince as Sam reacted exactly as he’d expected.

“Seriously? _Seriously?_ Dammit, Dean,” he huffed, looking around and shaking his head as his fists clenched and unclenched in the sheets. “All right, let’s hear it.”

“We have to stop hunting for ten years.”

“And…?”

“And that’s all, Sam,” Dean verified. Sam blinked in confusion.

“What…um…how… Are you sure?” he finally asked. Dean scoffed and raised an eyebrow in annoyance. “How is that…really, just no hunting? For ten years?”

“For a maximum of ten years,” Dean clarified. “Death said he might cut the timeline short if he, I dunno, got bored or something.”

“What the hell? Why?”

“I don’t know, Sam. It’s Death! Does anything he does ever make sense?” Sam stayed silent, lost in thought. Neither of them had spoken yet when the doctor came in a few minutes later.

“Sam! Welcome back to the world of the living,” Dr. Mitchell said, glancing down at his chart and missing the way Sam blanched. “You have made a remarkable recovery. I’ve honestly never seen anything like it.” She glanced up with a smile but Sam just stared at her. She looked over to Dean in question. “Is he…”

“We’re fine,” Dean said quickly. “It’s just been a crazy day, is all. So…when can I take my brother home?”

The doctor laughed lightly. “Let’s slow down a little. Sam just woke up. His vitals are looking good but I want to keep him a few extra days.” Dean glanced at Sam whose eye roll and head shake went unnoticed by the doctor.

“Sure. Totally understand,” Dean said.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Late in the evening, when the hospital was dark and quiet and the nurse had finally agreed to let Sam sleep the rest of the night, the brothers stole out of Sam’s room, making their way silently down the hallways and stairs until they reached the exit. They crowed into the Impala and headed towards home…and towards temporary retirement.


	8. Pavlov's Dog

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the six-month hiatus. There were things and stuff and yeah. But I'm back and this should be updated regularly! (I will say once a week to be safe but hopefully it will be every few days.)

Dean could tell that his little brother was struggling to untangle a whole mess of emotions. The first week back—the first week of their retirement—Sam alternated between getting pissed off at Dean for breathing too loud and clinging to him desperately after he’d had left Sam alone for two to grab a shower. Dean didn’t say anything; Sam deserved to have the time and space (or lack thereof) to figure things out. Dean stayed scarce when Sam was agitated, and let Sam hold on when that was what he needed to soothe his unrest.

Dean didn’t just stay out of Sam’s way (or in it), he actually actively _tried_ to put Sam in a good mood. After the trials but before Sam went to the hospital, when Dean had been spending quite a lot of time in his brother’s room, he’d found a list of books. It had taken a few moments for it to register that it was a list of books that Sam hoped to read one day. And it was long.

It was obvious that Sam hadn’t gotten around to any of them, which was understandable. Whenever Sam was in the mood to read, it usually ended up being dusty, thousand-page books dug out of the Men of Letters’ bookshelves for some form or another of research. Because there was always something to research, always something necessary to learn for a hunt. There was _always_ something more urgent, and so title after title was added to Sam’s secret list while none of them were crossed off.

One day, when Sam was especially irritated with Dean (he wasn’t even sure why, and he didn’t bother to ask), Dean slipped out of the bunker and headed for the only bookstore in town. It was a decent size, but it was primarily used books, so he had no idea if they’d even have what he was looking for. He spent quite a bit more time browsing than he expected; at first, he was just trying to eat up time before returning to the bunker. But he soon found himself enthralled by the thousands of books surrounding him, most of them written simply for the reader’s enjoyment. Enjoyment, and that was it. Even years ago, back in school when he actually read a regular book here and there, it was always for a class assignment. But being something that Dean was _required_ to do, as opposed to something he _chose_ to do, was enough to make it unenjoyable. But now…

He found twelve of the books on Sam’s list, and figured that would keep his brother occupied for a good month or two. He even found a few books for himself. He was just cracking the first one open and sinking down onto one of the overstuffed, worn-in armchairs scattered throughout the store when his phone rang. The screen flashed with his brother’s name and Dean answered it immediately.

“Sam?” Dean forwent any greeting, instantly on red alert.

“Dean! Where are you?” Sam sounded annoyed more than scared or hurt, and Dean felt the tension in his shoulders release.

“I had to run an errand.”

“But you’ve been gone for _hours_ ,” Sam whined, reminding Dean of how his brother had sounded some twenty-odd years ago, when Dean had eaten the last of the Lucky Charms or made Sam brush his teeth before going to bed.

“I was getting something for you. It’s a surprise.”

“A surprise? Really?” Sam’s voice changed from petulant to excited in a split-second, and Dean held back a laugh.

“Yes, really. I’ll be home in twenty, okay? Unless you want me to grab some food while I’m out?”

“No, just…just come home. Now. Please.”

“Okay, Sammy.”

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

For the next week, more often than not Dean could find his little brother with his nose buried in one of the books Dean had picked up for him. But Dean could see through the distraction--even if Sam couldn’t, or maybe _wouldn’t_ acknowledge it—that Sam didn’t seem to be making any progress, still anxious and restless, hot and cold. He’d go from fretting over Dean like a concerned lover to being irritated by Dean’s very existence in the same room. It was giving Dean serious whiplash, and he knew that he’d have to address it sooner or later, if not for his brother’s sanity then for his own.

He kept putting it off, of course, as he was never one for heart-to-hearts. Or emotional conversations of any kind. He knew that it wasn’t healthy, but he also knew that rarely in his life had those types of discussions resulted in smiles and tears of joy. It was always something that left his mouth sour and his heart brittle; twisting and molding his defenses into a new shape, one with deeper cuts and sharper edges.

But when Sam started visibly dropping the small amount of weight he’d gained back since the hospital—weight his tall frame really couldn’t afford to lose—and refusing more meals than he accepted, Dean decided it was far past time to intervene.

Tonight was as good as any; better, actually, because Sam had actually eaten dinner with Dean and then had trailed after him to the living room for some evening relaxion. Dean had flopped down on the couch, propping his feet up on the coffee table and turning on the TV, volume low as he flipped through channels until he found a Clint Eastwood movie marathon. Dean looked up at his brother and Sam sighed, rolling his eyes at Dean’s choice of entertainment. But his expression was more fond than annoyed, and his lips were quirked up in a small smile. He snagged a book off the table and joined Dean on the couch. Instead of sitting down beside him, though, he stretched out onto his back, legs dangling over one arm and his head resting on Dean’s lap like it was a pillow.

 _Okay_ , Dean thought, _so tonight is Clingy Sammy night_. He firmed up his resolve and cleared his throat. Sam didn’t acknowledge Dean’s ‘I’m about to say something that’s making me uncomfortable’ cough, but Dean knew he was paying attention.

“Sam. You know you can talk to me, right? About anything,” Dean said, careful to keep his tone soft but not coddling. Sam didn’t even try to deny that he knew what Dean was talking about. He closed his eyes for a few moments then opened them, gaze sliding up from his book and straight to Dean’s face.

“You’ll—I don’t want you to judge me.”

“Sam, I wouldn’t—”

“Dean. _Come on_.” Sam sighed and his jaw clenched, exasperation obvious. “We haven’t exactly been family of the year the last few years. We’ve both said some shit, _done_ some shit that…that to other people would probably be unforgiveable.”

“What are you saying?” Dean asked, trying not to grit his teeth as his anxiety spiked.

“I’m saying that me telling you that I don’t want you to judge me isn’t some unfounded insecurity I have!” Sam replied harshly, and Dean flinched at the tone of Sam’s voice. At the truth of his words.

He rubbed a hand over his eyes, forcing away his kneejerk reaction to deny and evade. And then…he really _thought_ about what Sam said, about where Sam was coming from. Dean had always prided himself on his ability to get pissed and then get over it, to never hold a grudge. But as images from the last eight years flashed through his mind, he realized he’d been lying to himself. _Fuck_ , did he hold grudges. And the person who had suffered from all those lies? His brother.

Sure, Sam had done some pretty messed up shit. But Dean couldn’t deny that Sam’s heart had always been in the right place. Even when his brother knew what he was doing was wrong, he was always doing it for the right reasons, and he was only doing it because he was desperate and thought it was the only path he could take to get where he needed to go. But Dean…he’d told himself over and over again, every time he saw the hurt in Sam’s eyes that he’d placed there after bringing up Sam’s mistakes, that it was never intentional. And maybe it wasn’t consciously intentional on his part, but he could finally see now how maybe that wasn’t the point. If his intentions were _subconsciously_ intentional or _intentionally_ intentional, what did that matter to Sam? He didn’t live in Dean’s brain, he didn’t know what Dean was or wasn’t thinking. All he saw were Dean’s actions, all he heard were Dean’s words.

“Fuck, Sam. You’re right.” The shock that instantly replaced the anger on Sam’s face was enough to show Dean how much work they had to do, especially now that they couldn’t hide behind hunting, constantly ignoring and pushing away their problems to deal with things like one of them dying. Or the apocalypse. Or whatever this year’s excuse of a ‘more urgent matter’ was. Because now, there wasn’t one. There wouldn’t be for a very long time.

There was nothing to hide behind anymore.

“Look,” Dean continued, “I…I don’t even know where to start. I’m sorry? I mean, no. That’s not a question. I’m sorry,” Dean said with conviction. “You’re right. About us not being family of the year. I just always assumed, you know, we were willing to die for each other, and how bad could our relationship be if we cared that much about each other, you know? But I guess those two things aren’t mutually exclusive.”

“Mutually exclusive?” Sam interrupted, eyebrows rising and a small, amused smile playing at his lips. And Dean liked that look on his brother _much_ more than the anger or the shock.

“Hey! Not all the books I bought last week were for you,” Dean teased. His tension eased as the conversation became lighter, and he wanted to grab onto that and run with it, but he knew he’d just be avoiding the inevitable. They needed to put everything on the table.

“Seriously, though. I understand that we have a lot of issues that we need to deal with, probably more than I know. And we will deal with them, okay? I promise. I promise not to get angry and take off if you say something I don’t want to hear. I promise not to contradict you, to actually _listen_ instead. And I promise not to bring up whatever mistakes you’ve made just to put you on the defensive.”

“Dean…” Sam’s voice was soft, almost tender, and he was staring at Dean with a carefully composed neutral expression. Except for his eyes. Dean could see the light from the lamps reflected in their watery depths, and he knew his brother was holding back his emotions with a death grip. Which is exactly what Dean didn’t want, not anymore.

“And Sammy? Just because my main, I dunno, coping mechanism for the last fifteen years has been booze and pretending that I don’t care about anything, doesn’t mean I want you to do the same. If you’re happy, laugh. If you’re sad, cry. Just…don’t hold back because of me, okay? And maybe…maybe someday I’ll get there, too.”

“God, Dean,” Sam said with a laughing sob. “Who are you and what have you done with my brother?” His head left Dean’s lap—and Dean was so comfortable, he hadn’t even realized they’d still been in that position—and he sat up, swiveling around so that they were face to face.

“Not a pod person, Sammy. I swear. I want you to talk to me. I want you to talk to me because I make you feel _safe_ , because you _want_ to. Because I help. Well, will help. Hopefully. Oh, you know what I mean!” Dean said, throwing his hands up in exasperation and glaring at his brother as Sam burst into giggles.

“Now I know why you don’t like chick flick moments,” Sam said between laughs. “It’s because _you’re_ the chick!”

“Shuddup,” Dean growled, but there was no heat behind it and he failed to hold back a smile. “I’m trying to be supportive here!”

“I know, I know,” Sam said, catching his breath. “And I appreciate it. I really do.”

“Well, I figured, you know, I spent three decades taking care of you physically. It’s probably time I start doing it emotionally.” As Dean spoke, Sam bit his lip and tore his gaze away from Dean’s. Dean saw a flush stain his brother’s still-too pale cheeks light pink. He had an unexpected urge to trace the edge of that pink across Sam’s cheek and down his neck and…

 _What the fuck?_ , he thought, brain screeching to a halt. He had no idea where that came from, but now was not the time to dissect it.

“You’ve been fidgety and agitated since we got back from the hospital,” Dean said. “I can tell something is bothering you, and that you need to talk about it because it’s not getting better. So…”

“So…?”

“So do you wanna talk about it? With me?”

“It’s complicated.”

“I figured,” Dean said simply. It wasn’t an insult; Sam had what Dean called emotional intelligence. Obviously, Sam was smart in the normal sense, there was no question about that. But his little brother had been through so much, the type of things that would break other people. And had he not only survived, he still had hope for the future. He wasn’t content to just survive, he wanted to _thrive_ , and Dean admired the hell out of him for that.

“I’m serious, about you not judging me,” Sam said, interrupting Dean’s thoughts.

“I think we need to start over. Fresh slate, turn over a new leaf, et cetera. Our life is about to change, like, wholly and completely. And it’s gonna be hard.” Dean shrugged, a distinct act of the nonchalance he was very much _not_ feeling. “But that doesn’t mean it has to be _bad_ , y’know? And I think this is where that starts.”

“Yeah. I know,” Sam whispered. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, determination setting firm in his eyes. “Think about all the times one or both of us have stopped hunting, even just temporarily. For longer than…I dunno, a week.”

“Okay…” Dean said, and then actually did what Sam asked him to. When had there been breaks in hunting? The first one that came to mind was after the car wreck, the one where he should have died and their dad actually _had_ died. Then a year later, when Sam was stabbed. Dean remembered—after he made that deal and walked back into that shack to see Sam breathing, standing, alive and whole—that all he wanted to do was bundle up his little brother in the Impala and drive them away. Far away, from everything. Of course, there had been those pesky ‘urgent matters’ to attend to, and Dean had never gotten the chance to show Sam the Grand Canyon before he…

Fuck.

Sam addicted to demon blood, thanks to lies that Ruby told him, that the angels told them. Sam losing faith in himself, thinking Dean had done the same. Sam quitting hunting because he thought the world would be safer without him trying to help. Because he thought Dean would be safer.

Sam jumping into the cage, gone forever from Dean’s life.

Dean living a false life for a year with a kid and a girl who he never deserved, unaware that Sam was out there. Because Sam was back, but Cas had forgotten the most important part of Sam when he’d pulled his body out of Lucifer’s grip.

Bobby, voice strained as he uttered his last word to them before the bullet to his head took him from them. The ensuing three weeks they spent, silent and staring at nothing, and then staring at five numbers that meant nothing. That meant everything, because Bobby had died for those numbers.

Dean in purgatory. Sam thinking he was dead. Again.

 _Fuck_.

“We—you—yeah. Fuck.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed heavily. “It’s like Pavolv’s dog, except instead of the sound of a bell making me salivate for food, it’s like us not hunting is making me think that one of us is—”

“Sam,” Dean interrupted, not wanting to hear his brother say those words. Not wanting his brother to have to say them. “I get it. I do. But you know that’s not what’s happening here. I think that, as the days pass and neither of us, uh, you know. That it’ll get easier.”

“Yeah. Hopefully.”

“Okay. But, I mean, whenever it’s bothering you, you can still talk to me about it. Or talk to me about something else. Anything you need, okay?” Sam nodded, seemingly ready to move on from that particular topic. “Okay. What else is bothering you?” Dean asked, expecting to have to cajole and coax it out of his brother. He was pleasantly surprised when Sam didn’t even hesitate before spilling.

“I feel guilty.”

“Guilty about what?”

“That I miss hunting.”

“What…how come?”

“Dean.” Sam looked at his brother like he was a particularly difficult second-grader and Sam was the teacher with neverending patience. “Practically my whole life, what was the one thing I always said I wanted? That dad and I fought about over and over and over again?”

“You wanted to be normal,” Dean answered easily. He knew that line. It was the line Sam had left him with as he boarded a bus to Palo Alto. It was the line that had broken Dean’s heart.

“Yeah. And now…well. I’m getting what I want, right? And not because you’re dead or I’m addicted to demon blood or...whatever. No shitty strings attached. And I feel guilty because this is what I’ve wanted my whole life, and now that I have it, I don’t want it. I miss hunting. And I shouldn’t.”

“Aw, Sammy. Just because you wanted something for a long time doesn’t mean you can’t want something else. People do it all the time, with their careers. Their spouses. Where they live. Their hobbies. _You’re allowed to change your mind_.”

Dean finally gave in to his need to touch his brother, closing the small distance between them and pushing a lock of hair out of Sam’s eyes before pulling him into a hug. Sam’s arms immediately came up and wrapped around Dean’s waist, pulling him closer and squeezing him tightly.

“You’re allowed to be happy,” he whispered, barely louder than an exhale of breath. He felt tears against his neck and knew Sam had heard him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos make my world go round.


	9. Two Truths and No Lies

After their conversation (one that, Dean now realized, should have happened years ago), things started to go back to normal, whatever normal now was for them. Sam stopped acting like his bones were too big for his skin. He settled back into his personal space bubble, one that still half-enveloped Dean, kept him close enough to reach out and touch but didn’t smother.

And if Dean were honest with himself—which he was trying to do now, really, he was—part of him missed Sam’s clinging. They’d never been particularly tactile with each other; hugs either meant _You’re dying_ or _I just got back from the dead_ ; hands smoothing down arms and backs and chests meant _Where are you hurt?_ _What needs to be stitched up?;_ and hands in the hair, soothing caress of fingers through locks meant _Holy shit, that was a close one._

So yeah, maybe Dean missed the touches that for once weren’t loaded with fatalistic undertones. He was, however, beyond grateful that Sam no longer pushed him away randomly and without reason. He’d spent so many years with Sam sitting two feet to the right of him in the Impala; sleeping an arm’s reach away in a crappy motel bed; a constant presence that had been there so long, felt so familiar, that Dean felt like Sam was a part of him, and when he was gone, it was like experiencing a phantom limb.

They still had their moments, though. Sam falling asleep halfway through Die Hard, body slumping against Dean’s side and his head falling to rest on Dean’s shoulder. When Sam’s breathing evened out, a few soft snores scattered in, Dean would bury his hand in Sam’s hair, like he was a starving man and that was his first taste of food in weeks.

Dean didn’t overthink it. Yes, he was trying not to be so anti-introspective, but…baby steps. And trying to untangle this overwhelming urge to pull his brother against him, feel his warm skin and strong heartbeat that proved just how alive Sam was, well, that was definitely _not_ a baby step.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

The bunker provided them with basic needs: housing (obviously); water and electricity (which they still weren’t sure where those came from); and heat and air conditioning (things that were non-negotiable in Kansas). But as Dean watched their stash of cash dwindle, he realized that other things did not magically appear in the bunker. Food and laundry detergent and toilet paper all had to be bought, which meant they needed money. And they were quickly running out of that.

Dean was used to being on the road, if not constantly at least consistently. They had plenty of opportunities driving through backwoods towns with people more than willing to stake hundreds of dollars on their mediocre pool skills. And Dean and Sam knew how to work those situations so that they walked away three hundred bucks richer. And if they managed that twice per hunt, averaging two hunts in a month (a conservative estimate), that gave them over a thousand bucks for bare necessities.

But they weren’t on the road anymore, and they couldn’t hustle pool down at the dive bar in their own town, for obvious reasons. And they _definitely_ couldn’t run around town using stolen credit cards while frequenting the local businesses. Because while hustling pool would just result in their neighbors hating them, committing fraud over and over again in the same town would get them arrested. Again. Which meant they only had one option.

They needed to get jobs.

The biggest problem was that chopping up vamps and exorcising demons weren’t exactly appropriate skills to put on a resume, and both of their work histories were big, fat blanks. But they could lie about that—even set up a few burner cells for ‘previous employers’ and ‘references’. And Sam had a knack for words, spinning their… _highly specialized_ skill set into something a bit more respectable.

The other main issue was that Lebanon, Kansas wasn’t exactly known for its unlimited opportunities; people didn’t go there to achieve the American Dream. So even after Sam turned their resumes into something legitimately impressive, they still had to find actual jobs to apply for.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

“Dammit!” Sam cursed, angrily throwing his pencil down onto the notebook next to his open laptop. He pushed his chair back from the table, the shrill squeal of the wood against the floor cutting sharply into the tense silence that had fallen over the room hours ago.

Dean sighed and closed his own laptop before rubbing at his burning eyes. He’d been staring at the computer screen for what felt like an eternity, and he completely understood his brother’s outburst.

“I mean, it’s not like there are no jobs,” Sam said, voice strained. He stood up and started pacing, fingers running roughly through his hair like he tended to do when he was especially stressed. “It’s just…nothing _feels_ right. And I know, beggars, choosers, whatever,” he continued, motions growing more agitated by the second, “but we can’t screw this up! We can’t just move on to the next town if something doesn’t work out. I mean, we _could_ ,” he muttered, sounding like he was arguing with himself and had completely forgotten that Dean was in the room, “but then we’d have to find a place to live and nothing is gonna be as good as here. Free water and electricity, I mean, we’re not gonna find that somewhere else…”

As Sam continued his rambling, Dean hauled himself tiredly out of his chair and walked around the table, bare feet silent on the wood floor.

“Sam!” he said sharply, grabbing his brother’s shoulders to halt his pacing. Sam stopped talking mid-sentence and shook his head, blinking a few times before his eyes were able to fully focus on Dean. “Hey. Calm down,” he said gently. Sam looked so defeated, and without thinking Dean reached up and cupped his hands around Sam’s face. “We’ve got time, okay?”

They were standing close now, close even by Winchester standards. Dean could feel the warms puffs of Sam’s shallow breaths against his skin. And then…awareness came to Dean, sudden and forceful and refusing to be ignored any longer, the intensity of it nearly knocking him off his feet.

His first instinct was to jerk back, find space and distance. From Sam or from the tidal wave of emotions, Dean wasn’t sure, and it didn’t matter anymore. He’d spent the last thirty years building a shield out of that instinct: first to protect himself from the hot-cold nature of his father; then from the first jagged cut of heartbreak and the ensuing four years of heartache, a gaping hole inside him when Sam left for Stanford; and later, from the dull, mind-numbing grief at losing friend after friend.

Somehow, Dean was able to ignore that instinct this time. He didn’t move away, his muscles barely even tensing. He didn’t try to brace himself against the revelation crashing down on him; instead, he let himself get swept away. Because if he was going to drown, he would drown in the endless depths of Sam’s swirling hazel irises ringing the inescapable black holes of his pupils. He would drown beneath Sam’s warm skin, categorizing the scars that his brother had gained over the years, proof of life, bumps and ridges that made him stronger but also softer, like chain mail with links so miniscule they could slip through fingers like silk one second and stop a bullet the next. He would drown in Sam’s morning breath if it meant his lips would be the first thing Dean tasted when he woke up.

Dean _wanted_ his brother. He wanted to close the distance between their mouths, inches that might as well be miles. He wanted the thin layers of cotton between their chests to disappear. He wanted his memory foam mattress to sink beneath Sam’s body, to forever hold the shape of them laying together.

Dean wanted _all_ of Sam.

“Hello, earth to Dean! Hey, Dean!” Dean was dimly aware of Sam’s voice, his brother’s hand slapping softly against his cheek. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, trying to clear it.

“Yeah. Yeah, sorry,” he said. His voice sounded rough and broken, like he’d been gargling shards of glass before attempting to scream an opera.

“You okay?” Sam asked, hand coming to a rest on Dean’s cheek. His eyebrows were furrowed together in concern and his pink lips were turned down in an adorable pout. And since when did Dean describe his brother as adorable?

Since now, apparently.

“Yeah,” Dean rasped, then coughed and tried again. “Yes. Just…zoned out for a second.”

“Ohhhh-kay,” Sam said skeptically, but he didn’t push.

“Yeah. Just, uh, gimme a second,” Dean said, then stepped back slowly, immediately missing the contact when he drew his hands away from Sam’s face, when Sam’s hand fell away from his own cheek.

Dean turned and headed directly for the stash of liquor, pulling out the most expensive—and the strongest—whiskey they had. He filled two tumblers half-full and brought them back over to the table they’d been sitting at.

After their conversation a few weeks ago, Dean’s alcohol consumption had decreased dramatically. He’d found that, surprise surprise, when he could actually _talk_ to Sam about shit instead of trying to push it down and ignore it, he didn’t feel the need to drink nearly as much or as often. But right now was definitely an exception, because no way in hell was he telling Sam that he wanted to…to…

Fuck.

Dean set the glasses down on the table and pulled out a chair to sit; Sam quirked up an eyebrow but didn’t say anything, just sat down beside him. They drank in silence for a few minutes. Dean sifted through all the new crap in his head, trying to find the thread of their previous conversation that’d been cut off by his own stupid mind deciding to enlighten him, now of all times, that he was _in love with his brother_.

Fuck.

Dean swallowed down the hysteric laughter he felt bubbling up, taking another swig of drink and letting it burn away the panic threatening to attack his senses.

“So,” Dean finally said, because if he didn’t say this then something else, something _worse_ was going to come spilling out of his traitorous mouth, “what’s really going on? Why does a job search have you so…freaked out?” Sam shrugged and took another drink. “Sammy, come on.” Dean knew his brother better than he knew himself, specifically when to push and when to back off.

“Ba—” Dean snapped his mouth shut. He’d almost just called Sam _baby_! Sam eyed him curiously and Dean knew he was blushing furiously. He cleared his throat and chose his next words carefully.

“What’s bothering you, Sam?” His voice was serious, conveying to Sam that he might as well just tell him because he wasn’t going to let it go.

“It’s just…I mean, I know hunting isn’t the only way to help people. There are a ton of other jobs out there like that. But it’s…” Sam made a frustrated sound and dragged a hand down his face. “It’s not the same!” he finally blurted out. “I mean, it’s all the knowledge we have, everything we know about, well, _everything_. Monsters, demons, heaven and hell and everything else! We have all this information and, what, we just have to ignore it for the next _ten years_? How am I—how are we supposed to do that?!”

Sam’s body sagged, shoulders hunching and head hanging down as all the fight went out of him. He looked like a balloon that had just been deflated, and Dean’s heart clenched at how lost his brother seemed.

“Also,” Sam added quietly, “and maybe this makes me selfish or whatever, but…it kind of made me feel special, y’know? Maybe I didn’t achieve what used to be my dream of becoming a lawyer, but I’m doing something that very few people can do, and I’m _good_ at it. _We’re_ good at it. It’s no Noble Prize, but it’s…”

“Special,” Dean finished for Sam, echoing his earlier statement as he nodded his head in understanding. Sam glanced over at him, eyes dull and sad, and Dean felt brittle. He wanted to fix it, offer placations and look-at-the-bright-sides, anything to make his brother feel better. But with Sam, Dean now knew, honesty was _always_ the best policy. So he went with the truth, no matter how disappointing it was.

“I don’t know, Sammy,” he sighed. “I don’t know. But what I _do_ know is that, no matter how much it sucks, it’s not forever.” Sam looked up and offered Dean a small smile.

“Thanks,” he said softly. Dean nodded and got up to refill their drinks.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

They continued like this for another week until Dean finally forced them both to get out of the bunker. He picked a direction and drove, only pulling over when the tank was almost on empty and they were in a decently sized town that promised the perfect bar for earning a paycheck, so to speak. Sam had long ago stopped worrying over their less-than-upstanding means of making money. Dean figured that watching his brother get shredded and dragged to hell by invisible hellhounds, or spending a few centuries being tortured by Lucifer, was enough to quell any objections a guy might have about hustling some pool.

They didn’t have to drive aimlessly through the town for too long before they came across the first bar. It wasn’t too small and it looked a little shabby, but there were cars in the parking lot and neon signs shining brightly in the windows, so Dean decided to stop there.

They walked in and Dean’s eyes flickered around quickly, memorizing the general layout of the place and where the exits were as they headed straight for two empty seats at the bar. They both knew the drill: they needed to hang around for a few hours—long enough to give the impression of getting thoroughly drunk—before they approached the pool tables or dart boards or whatever people were hovering around.

It wasn’t until he was halfway through his third beer—Sam right there with him—that Dean stopped to take a longer look around the place, this time focusing more on the people than the escape routes. He must not have noticed it at first because no one was being obnoxiously loud or breaking out into scuffles, but the cliental of the bar looked a little...rough. Most of them were minding their own business, but more than a few were shooting suspicious looks at him and Sam. Dean knew that it could be for any number of reasons, anything from being unknowns in a bar full of regulars to being two guys that didn’t have any chicks with them and were sitting just a little too close together. But since this town wasn’t too small, at least not small enough that everyone knew everyone else, Dean figured it was the latter. They may have crossed into Colorado, but that didn’t guarantee that _everyone_ in the notoriously blue state was open-minded.

Dean was sure that he and Sam could hold their own in a fight with pretty much anyone, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew how to read a room, and he could anticipate the outcome of most fights. And no matter how skilled he and Sam were in hand-to-hand combat, there was no way they could take on a dozen beefy guys and walk away without more than a few bruises and split lips.

Besides, when he wasn’t out of his mind with grief or anger, Dean didn’t _actually_ care to pick a fight just for the hell of it. And despite the distrusting glances being thrown their way, no one had actually said or done anything that indicated they were planning on starting something.

“Guess we won’t be making any spending money tonight,” Sam murmured behind his drink, and Dean knew that his brother had made the same deductions.

“Beer it is,” Dean agreed with a tight smile, then downed the rest of his drink before waving the bartender over for another.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Dean was sprawled out lazily in a booth, his legs pressing against Sam’s underneath the table. The lines of Sam’s face had smoothed out round about his sixth beer, and Dean couldn’t get enough of the easy smile on Sam’s lips or the adorable pink flush of his cheeks. His brother looked unbelievably enticing, good enough to fucking _eat_ , and Dean closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to get his thoughts under control. It had been a week since his little ‘aha’ moment, and he had yet to even attempt to sort through that mess. He knew he’d have to at some point, but sue him if he wasn’t exactly looking forward to it.

“I think,” Sam said, his voice the low drawl than only happened when he was drunk, “tha’ you’re hidin’ somethin’ from me.” Dean’s eyes shot open to find Sam smirking as he took a swig of beer.

“What d’ya mean?” Dean played dumb. Sam set his bottle down and leaned forward across the table until he was so close that Dean could smell the alcohol on his breath.

“You,” Sam said slowly, “have a secret.” Dean couldn’t stop the traitorous blush that crept up his neck and across his cheeks, and Sam snickered. At least his brother seemed more amused than upset by Dean’s supposed (but totally true) secret.

“Sam…” Dean said, his tone holding a clear warning not to push. But Sam was drunk, and drunk-Sam was touchy-feely and uncomfortably honest and always eager for a heart-to-heart. On the upside, a drunk Sam was also almost always a happy Sam, which Dean could definitely use to his advantage right now. Hopefully.

“Come on, Dean,” Sam whined, shooting his best puppy dog eyes at him, breaking down his walls like only his little brother ever could.

“Dammit, Sam,” Dean bit out, sounding harsher than he meant to. Sam sat back, his hurt obvious.

“Sorry,” Sam muttered, and Dean reached across the table and snagged his hand. Sam didn’t pull away, just looked at Dean curiously, eyes flicking back and forth between their joined hands and Dean’s face.

Dean knew that their idea of personal space, at least when it came to each other, was kind of inexistent. They stood too close and sat too close and were constantly reaching for brief touches, reassurances that the other was there and alive and okay. But those touches were never lingering, gone as quickly as they’d appeared, and he and Sam had _definitely_ never held hands before. But there was no denying that that was exactly what they were doing now. Dean sighed in resignation, holding on tight to his brother.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said. “And yes, I’m…I have a secret, or whatever. I just, um, I need to, y’know, process it? Before I talk about it. Is that okay?” The words felt strange coming out of his mouth; two months ago, he never would’ve thought that he’d ever utter the sentence ‘I need to process it.’ Yet here he was, willing to do anything for Sam, even if that meant acting like a well-adjusted adult who didn’t ignore his emotions.

Apparently, pigs _could_ fly.

Sam’s face softened and his frown turned upwards into a sappy smile.

“Okay, Dean,” Sam said, using his free hand to pat Dean’s like Dean was a little kid. “Just tell me when you’re ready.” He leaned forward again, almost knocking his bottle off the table but ignoring it. “And, then,” he whispered, looking around conspiratorially before turning back to Dean, “I’ll tell you _my_ secret.” He giggled and fell back against his side of the booth, leaving Dean wide-eyed and mouth hanging open in surprise.

“Y—yours?” Dean stuttered.

“Mhmm,” Sam said with another giggle. He then mimed zipping his lips shut and locking them, then tossing the invisible key over his shoulder. And with that, Dean knew he wouldn’t be getting any more answers out of his brother tonight, no matter how burning the sudden questions he had were.

“Okay, Sasquatch,” Dean said, sliding out of his seat and coming around to Sam’s side, “I think it’s time we call it a night.”

“But Dean,” Sam pouted, “we were havin’ fun!”

“Yeah, well, we can have fun in the car,” Dean grumbled, then blushed at his own choice of words.

“That sounded dirty, Dean!” Sam whispered loudly, and Dean blushed even more but he rolled his eyes; chances were high that his brother wouldn’t remember most of this tomorrow anyway.

“C’mon, Sammy,” Dean said, grabbing his brother’s arms and pulling him out of the booth and to his feet, steadying him as he swayed precariously. They made their way out of the bar slowly, Dean’s arm around Sam’s waist and Sam leaning heavily against his side. Dean smiled and mumbled a thanks when someone held the door open for them.

The fresh air cleared his lungs and the breeze was soothing against his face. He led Sam over to the car, opening the back door and helping his brother collapse onto the seat.

“Mmm,” Sam hummed happily, crawling across the seat until he was laying stretched out as much as possible. Dean snorted and shut the door gently, then climbed in behind the wheel. He wasn’t in any shape to drive home, but he wanted to get them parked somewhere off the road where they would go unnoticed while they slept it off.

It only took about ten minutes before he found a small turnoff from the quiet two-lane highway. The dirt road went about a hundred feet into the cover of trees before stopping in a dead end. Dean figured this would be suitable enough for a few hours of sleep, so he cracked the windows and turned the car off. He looked back at his brother, already asleep and snoring lightly, before Dean settled down in the front seat and drifted off, a small smile on his lips.


	10. Accidents Happen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a truly wicked cold for ten days, which meant last week I wrote probably a total of 500 words. Hence the reason for this update taking two weeks. Anyways, I've gone through like 50 bucks worth of Dayquil and tissues and I'm back to writing every day now yay! So the next update won't take nearly as long.

Dean woke to the unmistakable sound of retching, and before he even opened his eyes he knew Sam was being subjected to a surprise reappearance of last night’s beer. Dean groped around blindly—even Sam’s suffering couldn’t quite bring Dean to open his eyes before sunrise without at least two cups of coffee—his fingers finally finding a mostly full bottle of water. He held it out towards his brother, waiting for a break in the constant heaving followed by the muffled sounds of liquid splashing onto grass and dirt.

When the sounds of dry heaving continued on minutes later, Dean began to worry. He was thankful that it was still dark out, at least, helping to keep his own impending hangover at bay. He opened the door and practically felt out of the car, realizing that he was still a bit drunk. He opened the back door on the side that Sam wasn’t currently spewing his guts out and climbed back inside the car, trying not to jostle his brother too much.

Thanks to years of personal experience, Dean knew that Sam needed to get his breathing under control to help stop the dry heaving, which was now his brain’s panicked response, not his body still trying to get stuff out. Dean kept his voice low and his hand steady as he murmured calming words and rubbed soothing circles on Sam’s back.

“C’mon, Sammy. Focus on your breaths. In and out, not too fast. You’re okay.” He kept talking, exaggerating the sounds of his own deep breathing for Sam to follow along.

Finally, the tremors wracking his brother’s body subsided and Sam reached back towards Dean in a silent request. Dean handed him the bottle of water and Sam made quick work of it before sliding his body back so that he could shut the door, cutting off the sight and smell of his vomit.

Their trusty green cooler was sitting on the floor of the back seat, and Dean breathed a sigh of relief when he opened it and found three more bottles of water sitting in the half-melted ice. He handed one to Sam then looked around for a rag. He spotted Sam’s flannel shirt—he must have taken it off at some point before he got sick—and Dean smelled it quickly before sticking part of it into the cooler. soaking it in the freezing cold water.

He gently pushed Sam’s sweaty hair out of his face. His brother’s eyes were closed and his face was flushed, and when he leaned into Dean’s touch, Dean’s heart skipped a beat. Fuck, Dean was starting to feel like a prepubescent girl experiencing her first crush. And he was still _so_ not ready to examine these feelings closer. For one, he was straight. Or at least, he had been up until this point. And two…well, it was his fucking _brother_!

Sam whimpered quietly in obvious discomfort, pulling Dean out of his thoughts. He shook his head to clear it and began mopping Sam’s brow with the cool, wet makeshift washcloth.

A few years ago, Dean would’ve teased his brother mercilessly for something like this. But things were different now; Sam had almost _died_ , and Dean had made a deal that had caused their lives to take a hard left turn into brand new territory. Which, considering everything they’d seen and lived (and sometimes died) through, “brand new territory” was a big fucking deal.

Dean was different now, too. Older, of course. Wiser…that was arguable, but he liked to believe it to be true. What he did know without a shred of doubt was that he valued Sam’s life even more. And yes, it had been six years ago that he sold his soul for the first time to bring Sam back from the dead, but the pain and grief then had been overwhelming, mind-numbing. Now, it was a constant thrum through his veins, because how many times had he watched his brother die since then? So yeah, Dean was definitely different now.

After a few minutes, Dean asked, “Sam, think you’ll get sick again if I drive us home?”

“Nnng,” Sam replied incoherently. Dean chuckled and crawled backwards out of the back seat. He shut the door quietly and got behind the wheel, making sure the radio was off, just letting the quiet hum of Baby’s engine lull Sam to sleep.

They pulled up to the bunker before the sun made an appearance over the horizon, and Dean breathed a sigh of relief. He’d always loved sunsets, but he detested sunrises. Seeing a sunrise meant he’d either stayed up way too late or woken up way too early, and both of those were crappy in his book. Besides, for pretty much his entire life, the majority of his sunrises had come after hours of digging up graves and being tossed around by ghosts, which also brought sore muscles and cuts and scrapes, and if they were extra lucky, a few broken bones.

The drive must have been good for Sam, because when Dean helped him out of the car he was able to hold most of his own weight, the sickly gray color of his skin was gone, and his breaths were calm and steady.

They made their way slowly towards the bunker, and Dean cursed the steep metal stairs right inside the door. They were great for announcing unwelcome visitors, but a precarious pain in the ass when he was trying to manhandle his drunk and not-so-little little brother down them.

They made their way down without incident, and Dean led them across the map room and the library, down the hall, and into the bathroom.

“Take care of business, Sammy,” Dean said, letting Sam go to stumble his way to the toilet. Dean turned, giving his brother a modicum of privacy even though he was pretty sure Sam was unaware enough at the moment to care one way or another. At the sink, Sam washed his hands and messily gulped down some water before splashing more on his face.

Dean led him back down the hall towards their bedrooms, but as they came to Dean’s, Sam veered inside and flopped down on the bed.

“Sam, this isn’t your room.”

“I know,” Sam slurred, “your bed’s more comfy.”

“Sam,” Dean said, putting on his best older brother voice. But Sam wasn’t listening, he was busy kicking off his shoes and wiggling out of his jeans. Dean had to look away, the movements of Sam’s body and the appearance of skin as he shed first his jeans then his shirt doing funny things to Dean’s stomach.

He hated himself for it, for the way he was feeling, but he also knew that he wasn’t going to kick Sam out of his room. Dean moved towards the bed, unable to stay away. He stared down at Sam, cheeks flushed petal pink, skin glistening with sweat that Dean wanted to taste, lick every drop of it off Sam’s skin.

He tore his eyes away before they traveled too low; Sam’s boxer briefs left very little to the imagination, and right now Dean was barely keeping his imagination from running into very wild, _very_ inappropriate, incestual territory.

He groaned in frustration, hands scrubbing at his face and tugging at his hair. Finally, he shed his own clothes, opting to kept his own tee shirt on as he wanted to minimize skin-to-(fucking glorious) skin contact. He flicked the light off and climbed into bed next to Sam, who immediately rolled over and plastered his body to Dean’s. Dean sighed, resigned. He should have known his brother would glom on like that. He told himself that it wasn’t personal, that Sam was just a natural cuddler.

And yet, he couldn’t keep himself from praying to an absent god that it _was_ personal, that Dean was the only person that Sam wrapped his body around like this in sleep.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Dean woke slowly, an experience he was still unfamiliar with. He’d spent the better part of three decades constantly on edge, prepared for anything to happen at any time. Monsters didn’t care if he hadn’t slept in forty hours and was running on gas station coffee and fumes. They didn’t play by human rules, which meant silver knives were kept under pillows, shotguns loaded with rock salt were always within arm’s reach, holy water waited on the bedside table, and Dean could go from REM sleep to alert and accurately shooting a moving target in less than five seconds.

He still did all of that on a regular basis—being on the road for hunts made it a continuing necessity—but with the discovery of the bunker, Dean was slowly getting used to the fact that he didn’t have to live like that all the time anymore.

So instead of pushing through the grogginess, he luxuriated in in it, savoring the fuzzy calmness, the lack of anxious, uncertain anticipation. As he drifted slowly into consciousness, he took stock of his surroundings: the distant but distinct smell of coffee, courtesy of the daily timer on the coffee maker; the sour taste in his mouth, courtesy of lots of beer and no toothpaste last night; the chilly air of the bunker that he was protected against, courtesy of the pleasantly warm body pressed all along his front. Dean’s fingers were trailing absently over a smooth expanse of skin; his hips were making small, aborted thrusts against the other body, attempting to gain a fraction of relief from his aching morning wood.

When Dean’s brain finally caught up with his body, he froze, disgust coursing through him. _He was humping his brother._ Sam grumbled and started to squirm away from Dean’s grasp, and disgust was quickly replaced with fear, fear that his brother was awake and horrified at what Dean’d been doing.

Instead, Sam rolled over so that they were facing each other. His eyes were closed and his breaths deep, and it took Dean a few seconds to realized that his brother was still obviously asleep. He let out a shaky breath, relief washing through him. It was temporary, though; Sam began squirming again, but this time towards Dean, once again bringing their bodies into full contact. Dean’s crotch was no longer pressed against Sam’s ass; it was now snug against his brother’s own rock-hard dick. A moan, quiet yet strangled, escaped Dean’s lips, and he clamped down on the embarrassingly obscene sound, cutting it off and leaving an abrupt, heavy silence in its wake. And then…

And then _Sam_ was pumping his hips against _Dean’s_. The movements were sharp and rhythmic, and if it weren’t for Sam’s occasional snores (as well as the belief that _Sam_ would _never_ think that way about his own brother), Dean would’ve sworn that Sam was awake.

He had to bite back another groan when Sam’s cock slot perfectly in beside his, the worn-thin cotton of their boxer briefs acting as little more than a visual barrier between their bodies while doing nothing to actually lessen the sensations. He was just about to pull away when Sam’s leg hitched up over his hip and Sam’s large hand grabbed Dean’s shoulder, gripping him tightly. This was Dean’s ultimate fantasy and worse nightmare happening at the same damn time, and he was absolutely powerless to stop it.

When did his ultimate fantasy become getting down and dirty with his brother? Dean had no fucking clue, but with the way his body was responding to Sam’s jerky movements, there was no doubt that he was about to relive the embarrassment of his childhood wet dreams. Except this time, his mind wasn’t imagining Daisy Duke; his gaze was locked on Sam’s sleeping face, pink lips just inches away from his own. And he was harder than he’d ever been.

On edge and desperate, Dean tried one more time to pull away, but he was trapped by his brother’s limbs, and he knew that the force needed to break that contact and move away would undoubtedly cause Sam to wake up. And then Sam—who had remained silent throughout all of this save for his occasional snoring and breathy sighs—began whimpering. The sound was soft, almost dainty, but it hit Dean like a fucking train. He was going to come—

Sam’s body stiffened and his eyes snapped open; a second later, Dean felt a warm wetness seeping through the fabric of his boxers. Sam’s pupils were blown wide and his breathing had turned harsh. The sudden realization that he’d just come by rutting up against Dean was too much and Dean moaned loud and long, cursing as his orgasm crashed into him, a fire burning through his veins as his cock pulsed, releasing spurt after spurt into his boxers.

It took Dean a minute to come down from one of the best orgasms he’d ever had, and when he finally opened his eyes, he got a split-second glance at Sam’s terror-filled ones before his brother was scrambling backwards. In his haste to get away, Sam tumbled off the bed, dragging the sheets with him. But he didn’t stop moving, just pushed himself up off the floor and backed towards the door.

“Oh, god— I-I don’t— I’m—” A strangled cry escaped his lips, and before Dean could say anything, could even stand up, Sam was tearing out of the room. Down the hall, a door slammed and then the muffled sound of water running through pipes confirmed that Sam was drowning his freakout in the shower.

Dean sighed and climbed out of bed, peeling his sticky boxers off and snagging a towel from his dirty laundry to wipe off the come drying on his skin. He dressed quickly in jeans and a tee, then sat on his bed to wait for Sam to finish his shower. He didn’t _want_ to talk about this, but Sam’s reaction couldn’t just go ignored. Dean had to say something to try and salvage whatever he could of their…what? Relationship? Brothership? There wasn’t a name for what they had between them…and that unnamed thing might’ve just been irrevocably shattered.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Sam wasn’t usually one for long showers; maybe it was a habit formed from years on the road, their father hammering into them the importance of efficiency in all aspects of life. Plus, it was a bit difficult to bring a sawed-off shotgun into a shower (Dean would know; he’d tried more than once), and Dean was vehemently sure of one thing about his brother: Sam had a deep=seated aversion to putting himself in any vulnerable state for too long. And being naked, wet, unarmed, and trapped in a small room that typically only had one exit? It didn’t get much more vulnerable than that.

Not to mention Dean had a knack for calling out first dibs on the shower after getting back from a hunt, and he could admit that he was a bit of a water hog. It made him wonder how many times Sam had been left to wash off in lukewarm or even cold water, and a ripple of guilt ran through Dean.

But at this point, Dean knew Sam was just stalling. It had been forty-five minutes since he’d fled Dean’s room, and the water was still running in the bathroom. Dean was pacing impatiently outside the closed door, growing more and more worried as the seconds ticked by. He was starting to get a bit irritated too, though. Sam was hiding, _avoiding_ , something that they’d both promised each other they wouldn’t do shortly after their hunting prohibition had begun.

Finally, the water was shut off. Dean forced himself to stop pacing, to release some of his anger. _He_ was the one in the wrong here, the one having wildly inappropriate feeling about his brother. Sam’s freakout was totally understandable, and Dean was the one who needed to fix this. So getting mad at his brother for taking less than an hour to compose himself was definitely _not_ something Dean should even bring up, let alone get mad about.

Sam emerged, thankfully dressed in sweatpants and a shirt. Having this conversation with his brother standing before him, wet and naked save for a towel, would have been near impossible for Dean. As it was, he wondered where Sam had gotten the clothes; he’d drunkenly stripped down to just his boxers before he’d climbed into Dean’s bed hours earlier. Dean studied the too-tight shirt, the sweats that hovered just above his feet like they were an inch or two too short. Slowly, he realized that Sam was wearing _his_ clothes, the ones Dean had had slept in then left in a heap on the bathroom floor before his shower yesterday morning.

Worry and fear was immediately replaced by fiery possessiveness, Dean’s lizard brain chanting _Mine! Mine! Mine!_ as he stared at his brother dressed in clothes that smelled like him, marked by an orgasm that _he_ had caused. He wanted to manhandle Sam back to his room, strip him down and lay him out, rut against him until the both came again, their mixed come messy between their bodies. He wanted to rub their combined scent into Sam’s skin, into his own, until he didn’t know where he ended and his brother began.

Sam took a deep, shaky breath, and all of Dean’s fantasies evaporated in an instant.

“I, um… Look, I don’t…” Sam trailed off, faced turned away from Dean’s, unwilling or maybe just unable to meet his eyes. Dean was slapped with the reminder that Sam didn’t want this. Hell, he’d probably been dreaming that he was back in bed with…with Amelia. Or maybe even Jess. He definitely hadn’t been dreaming about Dean, and he was probably blaming himself, thinking he was unclean again. But Sam had always been pure of heart and soul; Dean was the one who was unclean. He stepped closer to his brother, reaching out slowly to place a gentle hand on Sam’s tense shoulder.

“Sam, don’t— Hey, it was an accident, okay? It didn’t mean anything.” The words were meant to soothe, to reassure, but instead something dark and almost painful flashed through Sam’s hazel eyes before his features morphed into what Dean could almost swear was disappointment. But it was gone a second later, replaced by glaring anger and hard walls. Sam jerked away, spinning around and storming down the hall to his own room, the door slamming loudly. Dean was left standing there, dizzy and confused in a way that he’d never experienced before, not even from all the monster-inflicted concussions he’d collected over the years.

He hadn’t moved a muscle, wasn’t sure he’d even blinked when Sam reappeared, now in jeans and shoes and a jacket. He brushed past Dean without stopping, without even looking, and a minute later Dean heard the faint squealing of metal as Sam walked up the front stairs; the creaking of decades-old hinges as Sam opened the door; the metallic boom as Sam left their home and shut the door firmly behind him, leaving a shattered Dean in his wake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More Dayquil would be very much appreciated. Or comments. That would be good, too ♥️


	11. Bent

Dean wasn’t sure exactly how pissed his brother was, but with the way he’d stormed out without saying a word, he knew it was bad. And maybe it made his skin itch and his heart pound that Sam hadn’t said when—or even _if_ —he’d be back, but Dean didn’t bother trying to call; he knew Sam wouldn’t answer.

So Dean did the only thing he could: drink.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Sam returned hours later, the reek of booze rivalling Dean’s and the distinct stench of sex—a mix of sweat and come and latex and regret--clinging to his clothes and hair and souring the air around him. Dean was expecting him to look sated, maybe even smug, but his expression showed a different emotion, one Dean couldn’t put a name to at the moment. Because he was currently occupied by his own rage and feelings of betrayal, and on top of that, stupidity at his absurd, unjustifiable emotions.

Dean’s gut felt as twisted as his thoughts, but he knew one thing: he couldn’t stand there, looking at Sam— _smelling_ Sam—like that for a second longer. So he grabbed his coat, tugged on his boots, and made his own dramatic exit, hoping that his brother felt just as heartbroken now as Dean had when Sam had done the same.

He headed for the garage, steps echoing angrily in the long, empty hallway. He headed straight for the Impala, but images from last night assaulted his mind with the sight of his Baby, so he veered off towards one of the other cars that had been left in the bunker before it’d been abandoned and forgotten. Most of the other cars barely worked, left sitting without care or touch for decades. But Dean had worked on fixing a few of them, just to make sure he and Sam had backups if something (god forbid) happened to Baby. He opted for an old Chevy pickup, the blue paint faded and the leather seats cracked, but the engine ran and there was gas in the tank.

His body went on automatic, and when his thoughts finally cleared, the bunker was fading out of sight in the rearview mirror, a cloud of dust obscuring Dean’s last glance as the road curved to the left. It was still light out, but Dean had no interest in company, even that of passing cars. So he stuck to back roads and empty two-lane highways, the ones that were flanked by acres of grazing fields for cows and tall stalks of corn and wheat, growing in endless rows as far as the eye could see.

Half an hour later was when he felt the first hot tears on his cheeks. He wiped at them furiously, swallowing thickly as he fought back a howl of grief. He wanted to scream and kick and punch and cry and beg Sam to love him, love him like he loved Sam. He couldn’t do that, though, so he let the tears flow freely and he drove faster, praying for the rumble of the engine and the hum of the tires on pavement to drown out his sorrow.

He drove until he began to sober up.

He drove until the sun started to set.

He drove until a tire blew, sudden and violent, and then he wasn’t driving any more. He was skidding, spinning, off the road and onto the grass and straight into the trunk of a tree. Metal screamed as the car bent, reshaped itself around the tree, and Dean’s body screamed as he felt the impact down to his very bones. His eyes fluttered shut as shock overtook his body. His second-to-last thought was that he was really glad he hadn’t been driving Baby, because this damage would’ve been a bitch to fix. His final thought was of hazel eyes and silky hair and a dimpled smile.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

When Dean woke, he was shivering despite the sun beating down and the thick, humid air that seemed reluctant to fill his lungs with oxygen. His breaths were shallow, and even the smallest of movements resulted in excruciating pain. He barely got his eyes open, taking in the shards of glass that littered the dashboard and the seats. He could see a few pieces imbedded in his skin, red stains spreading out from the entry points. A tiny shift of his body brought the kind of pain that told him that some of those pieces were probably pretty deep. Figuring that he’d accomplished a lot—getting his eyes to open and focus and not completely freak out by the shards of glass sticking out of him—he closed his eyes and drifted off for some more well-deserved rest.

The second time Dean woke up, it was dark out and the sound of cicadas was deafening. His skin was cold and clammy, but he was no longer shivering. He knew that wasn’t a good sign, he just couldn’t remember _how_ he knew this. It didn’t matter, though; he obviously needed help. He pushed the pain away long enough to take stock of his surroundings and remember what had happened. He’d been upset, driving…he must have driven over something that had caused a tire to blow and send him spinning off the road and into a tree. A road that he had taken specifically because it was rarely used, which would explain why nobody had come across his wrecked car yet.

His movements were slow, a deep, throbbing ache and stiff muscles making him feel like he was moving through molasses. Some kind of monstrous, agony-inducing molasses. He managed to get his hand into his pocket deep enough to pull out his phone. He breathed a sigh of relief when the screen responded to his fumbling fingers, flashing on to show a surprising lack of cracks, declaring his battery still at twenty-four percent. It took him an embarrassingly long time to get the screen unlocked and the speed dial pulled up to Sam’s name. He prayed that his brother wasn’t pissed enough not to answer his call; Dean could already feel himself fading again, losing consciousness, and he wasn’t sure if he could do this again. If his body would even hold on long enough for him to wake up again.

“Hello?” Sam answered on the second ring. At least one thing was going his way tonight.

“S’m,” Dean slurred. His mouth was dry and his throat rough and scratchy, and if he thought moving was painful, talking was torture. It was also crucial, so he tried again. “Sam,” he rasped. His voice was quiet to his own ears, and he wasn’t sure his brother could even hear him.

“Dean? You there?” Sam asked.

“Sam,” Dean repeated, this time a fraction louder.

“Dean, are you okay?”

“No,” Dean replied, voice cracking. “Help…me.”

“Dean, what happened?” Sam’s voice was high and panicked, yet it made something in Dean relax. His brother still cared. His brother would find him.

“Car…tree,” he said, knowing he wasn’t making any sense.

“Tree—Dean, did the car crash?”

“Road…empty.”

“What road? Dean, hey, talk to me. Where are you?”

“Cows,” Dean said. He hadn’t been paying much attention to the roads he’d taken, and he prayed Sam knew the area well enough that he could find Dean just by ‘cows’ and ‘empty road’.

“There are cows by you? And an empty road? Like a highway?”

“Yeah.”

“How long? Dean, how long were you driving before you crashed?”

“Two?” Dean estimated, head growing fuzzy with all the talking and thinking. He really just wanted to go back to sleep.

“Two? Hours? Days? Dean, talk to me!”

 _Days?_ Dean thought. _How long have I been out?_

“Hours,” Dean said, and heard Sam exhale loudly in relief.

“Okay, I’m coming. I’ll find you, Dean, just hold on, okay? I think I know where you are just…god, Dean. Just hold on, please.”

“Sammy…” Dean whispered, hearing a choked sob across the line before he blacked out once again.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Warm fingers on his cheeks, his neck. A familiar voice in his ears. His face was wet; so were his hands. Searing pain as his body was pulled out of its metal cocoon. Sobbing. Soft lips on his forehead, his cheeks, his eyelids. A heavy weight against his chest, pushing down over and over again, relentless. Finally, a rush of air in his lungs and a curse of relief uttered above him.

Dean drifted in and out of consciousness, though he was never fully with it enough to even open his eyes, let alone figure out what was going on around him. He felt his body jostled, then laid on something hard and unyielding. There were people yelling around him, but every word sounded garbled and foreign in Dean’s head. One presence remained with him constantly, a hand gripping his own. The hand was warm and callused, its familiarity tugging at Dean’s memory. He felt sheltered, protected in that presence, so he let go of everything, giving in to his body’s need to shut down. He knew his brother would keep him safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a fairly short chapter since the next one will switch to Sam's pov.
> 
> Also, if you are reading my j2 fic Rock and Roll, I promise I'm working on the next chapter.
> 
> Lastly, sorry about the cliffhanger. Again.
> 
> Comments? ♥️


	12. A Best-Case Scenario

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The car wreck and the first 24 hours in the hospital, from Sam's point of view.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the first time I read through this chapter after I finished writing it, I HATED it. It was just like 3000 words of medical talk and diagnoses. It was really fucking boring. So I had to rewrite some of it (hence the delay in posting), and I'm still not happy with it. But the next chapter will have LOTS of plot to make up for this one, and I promise the update won't take two weeks. (Yikes, sorry about that.)

The second Sam stepped into the bunker, drunk and sexed-out, and saw his brother’s face, he knew he’d fucked up. So he wasn’t really surprised when Dean disappeared immediately after catching sight—and smell—of Sam. He _was_ surprised, however, when Dean didn’t come home that night. Or the next.

Sam knew that running out like that before he’d even let Dean get a chance to say anything was crappy of him, but he’d only been gone a few hours. He had hoped that Dean would at least return the favor, so to speak. So hour after hour as Dean continued to stay gone, Sam’s anger burned brighter and brighter. Until…

Until he realized that, at some point, the anger had receded, making way for anxiety and worry. Because it had been two days and he hadn’t heard a word from Dean. So when his brother finally did call, Sam didn’t even consider letting the phone ring and making Dean sweat. Sam could be angry _after_ he made sure Dean was okay.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Dean was _not_ okay. The phone call had been bad enough, but finding him in that mangled heap of metal, his body slack with unconsciousness and covered by an alarming amount of blood, had almost sent Sam into a panic attack. Having to perform CPR on his brother was just the icing on the cake.

Dean had always preferred pie.

Now, Sam was pacing the length of the ER waiting room, glaring and snapping at anyone who wasn’t Dean’s doctor bringing news. It had already been a few hours since Dean was whisked off by a flurry of nurses and surgeons, and Sam felt almost nauseous, his body vacillating between an adrenaline-anxiety high and an exhaustion low.

Finally, the doctor came out and ushered Sam back to the room where his brother had been settled for the foreseeable future. The doctor stood there, quietly explaining what had happened since they’d arrived at the hospital and Sam had been separated from his brother’s unconscious form at the OR doors.

Broken ribs. Broken ulna and radius. Broken femur. Severe loss of blood. Concussion. Thirty-six stitches for four different lacerations caused by shattered glass. Extensive scratches, cuts, and bruising.

They’d lost Dean twice while on the operating table.

Sam didn’t hear much after that, he just sank slowly into the chair beside the bed, no longer acknowledging any other presence in the room besides his brother. He didn’t notice when the doctor stopped talked talking nor when the man left, softly shutting the door behind him.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Sam was jolted awake, heart pounding in frenzy as he took in his unfamiliar surroundings. Recognition hit him as memories of the previous twelve hours finally came back, but they did nothing to soothe his anxiety or the aching fear making his chest clench painfully.

“Good afternoon, sleepyhead,” said a soft, feminine voice. A voice Sam recognized. He whipped his head around, twinging his neck in the process. “Careful there,” said the woman, “I have a rule: only one Winchester allowed in a hospital bed at a time.” The doctor—because she was definitely a doctor, complete with the traditional white lab coat and a telltale stethoscope slung around her neck—was smiling fondly. A faint blush crept up Sam’s cheeks as he realized the potential euphemism her words held.

“I didn’t realize doctors _actually_ walked around using stethoscopes as necklaces,” Sam said without thinking. He was heavy on the sass on a good day, but right now he was tired and worried and Dean was in _trouble_ , which meant his brain-to-mouth filter had left the building.

The doctor, however, took no offense as Sam’s snarky comment, just smirked in amusement. She walked to the foot of Dean’s bed and plucked up the clipboard there, flipping idly through the papers, casual in a way that showed she either didn’t care or she’d already memorized every note on the pages. Sam assumed it was the latter.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” the doctor asked without looking up. Sam would have laughed at the words; they sounded something like one of Dean’s one-night stands would say if they were ever sloppy enough to burn through a small town twice. But the doctor didn’t sound hopefully lust-sick or pathetically simpering. Her tone was matter-of-fact but also genuinely curious. Sam scanned his brain, trying to match her familiar face to a name and location. “Not that I’m surprised,” the doctor continued as if there hadn’t just been three minutes of silence since her last unanswered question. “You were pretty out of it last time.” She looked up finally, meeting Sam’s gaze, and everything snapped into place.

“Dr. Mitchell,” Sam said, body tensing. Last time Sam had seen her, he’d been the one in the hospital bed and she’d been telling him that she wanted to keep him there for a few days, since he’d just miraculously woken up from a coma. And then he and Dean had unceremoniously snuck out of the hospital that same night.

“Call me Mona,” the doctor said, eyebrow arching up slightly like she could sense all of Sam’s guilt-tinged fears from their surprise confrontation. Well, there’d yet to be any confronting, per se, so as of right now it was just a surprise rendezvous. “Relax, Mr. Winchester,” the doctor finally said, “I’m not here to chastise you for leaving the hospital AMA—although you really didn’t need to sneak out. You could’ve just filled out the form.” Her lips quirking up in another smirk. Sam wondered if she found all her patients this humorous, or if it was just them. “I’m here to help your brother.”

Right. Dean.

“How is he?” Sam asked, swallowing thickly. “And, uh, call me Sam.”

“Well, Sam, he’s pretty banged up,” Mona stated. “I believe you got the post-op rundown last night?” Sam nodded. “It was touch-and-go there for a while. However, we believe that Dean’s cardiac events were caused by a combination of blood loss and shock, so once his wounds were treated and he was given a blood transfusion, his body settled down. He’s been stable for over twelve hours. That’s a good thing.”

Sam sucked in a deep breath, not remembering when exactly he’d stopped breathing; he was pretty sure it was sometime around when he’d had to give his brother CPR in the middle of the fucking night on the side of a deserted highway.

“Okay, so…” _What’s that mean? Is he going to be okay? When will he wake up? Is he still going to hate me?_ Dozens of questions, desperate and pleading, crowded his mind and jostled around, each one fighting to be asked first. Bur Sam didn’t know where to start. And some of those questions, well, Mona couldn’t give him an answer to them.

“Sam,” Mona jumped in, cutting off Sam’s impending freakout, “it’s going to be okay. I won’t lie, your brother is going to be in a lot of pain when he wakes up. And yes, he _will_ wake up. He’s not in a coma, natural or medically-induced. This is really a best-case scenario, all things considered.”

“Then why hasn’t he woken up yet?”

“Because the human body is much more efficient at healing itself when it’s asleep. That’s why people go into comas in the first place; their body is shutting down every non-essential function in order to focus all its energy on healing. Dean’s body went through a lot, and he still has a lot of mending to do which means he’ll be sleeping quite a bit for the next few days.

“And when he is awake, it’s very likely that he’ll be disoriented. He might suffer from short-term amnesia, especially regarding the events of the accident. And with the disorientation, it’s possible that he won’t recognize you at first, so just be prepared for that. Also, he’s on a cocktail of pain meds at the moment, so that will affect how much he sleeps and how lucid he is when he’s awake.”

Sam pursed his lips, quietly processing every piece of information Mona had just thrown at him. He tried to organize his thoughts, work out what questions he needed to ask now and which ones could wait.

At some point during the doctor’s speech, Sam had reached out and grabbed Dean’s hand, the action unconscious. He needed physical proof that his brother was still here, still alive; he needed an anchor, not to keep himself grounded but to keep himself tethered to Dean. Sam wasn’t sure what he was truly scared of: Dean floating away from Sam, or him floating away from Dean.

“Okay,” Sam said, directing his focus back to the doctor, “so Dean will wake up and probably soon?” Mona nodded so he continued. “And he’ll be okay, physically? Once all his broken bones and cuts and stuff are healed?”

“I think that we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, okay? But…well, in my personal, non-official opinion, apart from the expected physical therapy, yes, Dean should be fine. I mean, that wreck…Sam, your brother was really lucky. Like, miraculously lucky. You guys must have some kind of guardian angel or something.” Sam snorted but offered no reply. Mona replaced the clipboard at the end of the bed and offered Sam a smile.

“I’ll be back in a few hours. Feel free to use the bathroom to shower. I have a feeling you’re just as stubborn as your brother and you won’t be leaving anytime soon.” It wasn’t a question, and she didn’t wait for Sam to answer; they both knew what he’d say anyways.

Sam blinked and the suddenly it was just him and Dean alone again. He leaned forward, resting his forehead on Dean’s uninjured hip. _Wake up,_ he begged silently. _Please wake up._

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

The doctor and a few different nurses were in and out of the room throughout the afternoon and early evening. Mona came by one last time before going home for the night. She checked Dean’s vitals and reported happily to Sam that everything was looking good. Once she was done looking over Dean, she turned her assessing gaze on Sam.

“Now, I have to say this because it’s part of the doctor gig, even though I know I’m wasting my breath: go home, get cleaned up, maybe eat something, and get a few hours of shuteye.”

“No,” Sam said, shaking his head fiercely. He was worried that Mona would kick him out, but she just smiled in understanding.

“I figured,” she said with a shrug. “That chair,” she pointed to an armchair sitting in the corner of the room, “reclines, so feel free to sleep there. There are extra blankets and pillows in towels in the cabinet,” she went on, pointing to a tall cupboard next to the bathroom, “so help yourself to those. Marissa will be your nurse tonight, though you probably won’t see much of her. She’ll come by every few hours to check on Dean, but it you need anything, don’t hesitate to call her, okay? I’ll see you tomorrow.” She patted Dean’s foot affectionately before shooting Sam a smile and a small wave and exiting the room.

Sam stayed by his brother’s side for a few more hours, until he couldn’t fight the heaviness of his eyelids and he felt a kink start to form in his neck from how he was hunched over Dean’s bed. He sighed in resignation, standing up to move over to the armchair, grabbing a blanket and pillow on the way. He kicked off his shoes and removed his flannel shirt, then settled into the surprisingly soft cushions of the chair, falling asleep almost instantly.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Sam’s eyes snapped open, unseeing in the pitch black room. He’d been jarred awake by something, he just wasn’t sure what. He remained motionless and absolutely silent until he heard the cause of his alarm. It was Dean; soft whimpers and moans were emanating from him with the occasional mumbling. The words were mostly unintelligible, except for one.

“Sammy…” Sam was up and out of his makeshift bed like a shot, stumbling across the darkened room and falling hard to his knees at Dean’s side.

“Dean?” he whispered hesitantly. His brother didn’t respond, just continued the small, almost painful noises interspersed with Sam’s name. “Hey, Dean?” Sam tried again, hand coming to Dean’s shoulder and shaking him gently. Dean remained unaware, lost in his own dreams, and Sam didn’t want to force it, no matter how restless the heartwrenching sounds coming from Dean were making him.

He did, however, call the nurse in and ask her to increase Dean’s morphine drip for a little while. Sam knew his brother, and the noises Dean was making only meant one thing: he was in pain. As expected, five minutes after the nurse left Dean began to quiet down. His whimpers died out and the small, agitated movements he’d been making stilled completely.

Sam returned to his chair, attempting to get a few more hours of sleep. His brain had other ideas, though, and his mind wandered over the events of the last twenty-four hours, as well as some of the doctor’s comments.

It was one comment in particular that kept coming back to poke at Sam’s thoughts: _“You guys must have some kind of guardian angel or something.”_ At the time, the notion seemed so ridiculous that Sam had immediately brushed it off. Hell, he was pretty damn sure that the Winchesters were the angels’ _least_ favorite people, not that Sam had any sort of soft spot for the winged bastards, either. But the _or something_ …maybe Mona had been on to something.

Sam knew every single aspect of Dean’s conversation and ensuing deal with Death—he’d made Dean recount it multiple times in excruciating detail—and he knew that the deal had by no means covered any and all potential situations that could arise. The deal had solely focused on saving Sam’s life from the effects of the Trials, which meant there were plenty of opportunities for Death to…play with loopholes, so to speak.

And the more Sam thought about it, the more likely the idea became. Way more likely than Dean coming away from that wreck without any permanent injuries just from pure luck. And though they hadn’t had _that_ many encounters with the Horseman, Sam had a sneaking suspicion that it was still infinitely more that any human had had in the history of ever. And with each encounter, Death had surprised them.

From the very first one, way back when Lucifer was out of the cage and Dean had set out to kill Death only to walk away with an unlikely ally and the spell that would allow them to reopen the cage and throw the devil back in. And the most recent time, when he, Dean, and Bobby had actually bound the Horseman (with totally pure intentions, and it was only temporary), yet somehow they’d come out of that unscathed and with Death promising to help them open Purgatory to return all the nasties.

The angels might hate the Winchesters, but apparently they had a Horseman of the Apocalypse on their side.

So, yeah. It certainly wasn’t impossible that Death had had a (small) hand in the current situation, and had protected Dean from snapping his neck or crushing his spinal cord when the car had hit the tree. And as much as Sam wanted to know for sure, he forced himself to let it go. If Death had intervened, then Sam was going to stay _far_ away from that gift horse’s teeth. And if Dean had just gotten lucky, well. Then Dean had just gotten lucky, and that was that.

Still feeling twitchy and anxious even after slogging his way through his muddled thoughts, Sam waited for the nurse to come in and perform her scheduled check-up of Dean. When she was gone, Sam cleared a path from the corner of the room where the armchair was to Dean’s bed. Then, he dragged the chair across the floor, the action smooth and silent curtesy of the slick linoleum.

He arranged the chair next to the head of Dean’s bed, pushing the side of it flush against the metal safety bars that kept an unconscious Dean from falling out of the tiny bed. Sam clambered back onto the chair and pulled the little lever that made the foot rest pop out and the back recline backwards into a semi-laying position. He was close enough to reach over and twine his fingers with Dean’s, the physical connection giving Sam instant relief from much of the tension and anxiety he’d been carrying with him. After that, sleep came easily.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

The second time Sam woke, it was in the early hours of the morning. There was a faint dull gray seeping around the edges of the window blinds, and it just had that _feeling_. Dean always thought that Sam was an “early bird catches the worm” type of person, but in all honesty, Sam hated this time of day. Insecurities no longer blanketed by the quiet dark of night, yet no sun to burn away demons and warm the soul. So even the days when Sam woke up at six a.m. to go for a run, he always made sure the sun had fully risen first.

Lost in his thoughts, he almost didn’t hear the quiet “Saaaaammmmyyyyy,” beside him. He looked away from the window and down at his brother, swearing that he just imagined it. Then, it happened again. “Saaaaammmmyyyy,” Dean sang, his voice a full octave higher than usual. Although it was no longer pitch black in the room, Sam had to lean in close to see his brother’s face. Dean was wearing a small, crooked smile but his eyes were closed.

“Dean? You awake?”

“Sammy. You came.”

“Dean, you’re in the hospital. You were in a—”

“I hoped but I wasn’t sure.”

“Dean, are you okay?”

“Thanks, Sammy. I…I guess it’s time.”

Sam had seen his brother hopped up on painkillers more than a few times, and he was _never_ like this. It took a second for him to realize that Dean was _still_ asleep, and was apparently having a conversation with dream-Sam. Sam suddenly felt like he was intruding on something private, eavesdropping on a conversation Dean probably wouldn’t want him to hear. But it was late—or early, whatever—and there weren’t very many places Sam could go, unless he wanted to shut himself in the bathroom. Plus, who knew how long this would go on? What if Sam came back too soon and walked in in the middle of Dean saying something, and Sam only heard part of it out of context and…

Okay, so he was making excuses. The truth was, he was just plain, naked curious. Sue him. His decision was made in two seconds.

“Time for what, Dean?” Sam asked, even though he knew Dean couldn’t actually hear him. But it made him feel a little less guilty about the situation, made him feel like he was talking _with_ Dean and not just listening.

“It’s time for me to tell you my secret, Sam.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments? Kudos? Love?


	13. Revelations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I not promise you that you wouldn't have wait another two weeks for an update??

Dean opened his eyes and found himself walking through a field of wildflowers. The grass was waist-high and soft like silk when he dragged his hands through the blades. The flowers painted a rainbow among the green, and everything was suffused with a hazy, golden light. When he looked up, the sky was a brilliant blue spotted with fluffy white clouds, the kind of clouds that made Dean want to lay down and stare at them until he found animal shapes in each one.

He couldn’t remember anything from before he’d opened his eyes, yet it felt like he’d been walking for hours, maybe even days. Like he was searching for something, or someone.

His brother. He was searching for Sam.

“Sammy?” Dean called out, stopping to blink in surprise when he heard his voice. Sam’s name had come out like a song, ringing soft and clear across the field. There was no trace of the gruff, raspy tone that Dean had come to expect. He called out again, and it was like whatever was giving the world around him its softness was also affecting Dean’s voice. He was surprised how _not_ unsettled he was by it.

All the lingering curiosities flew from his mind when he heard his name being called a moment before Sam came into view. Dean blinked and suddenly Sam was right there in front of him, his smile bright and his eyes glittering.

“Sammy. You came,” Dean said breathlessly. He reached out towards his brother, half-convinced he was just a mirage. Dean’s fingers brushed lightly against the worn-soft flannel of Sam’s shirt, and the next second he was being wrapped up in a bear hug, his cheek pressed against the warm skin of Sam’s neck. He inhaled deeply, the familiar scent of his brother comforting in a way nothing else ever could be.

“Of course I came,” Sam whispered into his ear. Dean shivered.

“I hoped but I wasn’t sure.”

“Dean. I’ll always come back to you,” Sam said, pulling back from the hug so that they could look at each other. Sam’s arms stayed wrapped around Dean’s waist, and a sudden feeling a peace washed over Dean, along with the urge to reveal his secret. _The_ secret. Somehow, he knew Sam wouldn’t turn away from him.

“Thanks, Sammy. I…I guess it’s time.”

“Time for what?” Sam asked, tilting his head like a confused puppy. It was adorable, and Dean had never felt so confident in revealing such a big secret. He felt safe and secure in his brother’s presence.

“It’s time for me to tell you my secret, Sam.”

“Whatever it is, Dean, I’m here for you. I’ll always love you.”

“You—you love me?” Dean gasped. Obviously his brother loved him, Dean knew that, even if they still didn’t say it very often. But the way Sam had just said it then, like didn’t just love Dean, he _loved_ him…

“Of course, Dean.” Sam was looking at him with a small smile and his trademark puppy dog eyes, and Dean melted.

“Well, I guess my secret isn’t as deep and dark as I thought,” he said with a chuckle. Sam’s smile grew bigger. “I love you, too.”

“I know,” Sam whispered. “I was just waiting until you were ready.”

 _Ready for what?_ The question was on the tip of his tongue, but before Dean could get the words out, Sam leaned down ever so slightly and captured his lips in a kiss. It was surprisingly gentle, and Sam’s lips were soft and as warm as the rest of him. Dean parted his mouth, eager for more, for _deeper_ , but his brother pulled back.

“You know I’m not real, right?” Sam asked sadly, caressing Dean’s cheek with soft fingers. Dean sighed and nodded. “You should tell him, Dean,” Sam said. “Tell the Sam out there in the real world.” Dean shook his head as the fears came rushing back. “Yes, Dean. You’re going to wake up soon.”

“I can’t,” Dean croaked. “He’ll hate me.”

“He loves you,” Sam corrected. “More than you realize.”

“B-but…not like _that_ ,” Dean whispered desperately.

“Don’t be so sure,” Sam replied with a smile. He stepped back and his body began to fade. Dean reached out again, but his fingers ghosted through the now-transparent form. “Tell him, Dean. You won’t regret it.” And with those words, Sam vanished. A moment later, the field around Dean vanished as well and his world was plunged into black.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

The first thing Dean noticed was the incessant pounding in his head. He was allowed five whole seconds of just that before his pain receptors came back online. Then, his mind was flooded with a dozen different types of pain all across his body, one blending into the next so that it felt like there was not one single part of him that wasn’t bruised or broken.

He let out a distressed groan, the small noise tearing through his dry, scratchy throat. He tried to open his eyes but his lashes felt glued together. Then he registered new sensations—something warm squeezing his arm gently; something else, cool and wet soft, wiping lightly across his face. The touches were a stark contrast to the alternating sharp and dull aches of his body, and he sighed with relief from the temporary distraction.

“Dean? Dean, you awake? Open your eyes, baby, please. Dean…”

Dean heard the voice speaking to him, heard every word clearly even though voice warbled in and out, like a radio with questionable reception. The voice didn’t stop, and as each minute passed, it grew clearer and clearer. The sound filled Dean with a familiar warmth, and he relaxed as the words washed over him. He wanted to fall asleep to the low, soothing rumble; another part of him, though, was urging him to open his eyes, to reach out and grab onto the source of that voice, and then never let go.

When _find the source of that voice_ flashed through Dean’s mind, he realized that the comforting familiarity of it was, in fact, because he knew that voice. He’d grown up with that voice, heard it change from the high, soft tone of a child to the deep, whiskey-smooth tone of a man. Yes, he’d know that voice anywhere. He’d do anything for that voice…even wake up from a blissfully pain-free sleep.

“S’m?” he rasped, barely audible due to the desert that was currently taking up residence in his mouth. A moment later, he felt something poke at his lips.

“Drink,” Sam whispered, and Dean obliged, sucking in cold water through the straw like it was the elixir of life. And, well, it technically kind of was, Dean thought absently. “Slow, Dean,” Sam said, and the straw slipped out of Dean’s mouth about five gallons too soon. He whimpered and felt a cool cloth wipe across his forehead again.

Belatedly, he realized that his eyes were still closed. He cracked one open just a sliver, expecting to be assaulted by the bright, florescent lights of a hospital room. And he had no doubt that he was in a hospital: the too-small bed, the scratchy sheets, the unmistakable sterile scent…everything he despised.

However, he wasn’t met with blinding light; the room was mostly dark, just a faint glow coming from somewhere to his side. Deeming it acceptable—and unlikely to aggravate his already-pounding head—Dean fully opened both eyes. In an instant, his view of the bland hospital ceiling was obscured by Sam’s face hovering directly above him.

“Oh, thank god,” Sam said, breath rushing out in relief.

“Heya, Sammy,” Dean croaked, his voice strengthened a bit from the water.

“God, you scared the shit out of me,” Sam sobbed, letting his forehead drop onto Dean’s shoulder. Dean flinched, then realized most of the pain was radiating from the left side of his body, and the shoulder that was currently growing damp with Sam’s tears was surprisingly bruise-free.

Dean tried to lift up his arm to pat his brother on the back in comfort, but it was heavy and stiff. He looked down and saw the lower half of it encased in a thick white cast. _That’s just great_ , Dean thought, then his eyes landed on his leg. It also had a cast on it, stretching from his hip to his knee. _Fuck_.

A groan of frustration escaped his lips, and Sam’s head snapped up immediately.

“You okay?” he asked, eyes wild with fear and exhaustion. Dean tried to shift on the bed, and the resulting stabs of pain in his ribs caused him to whimper. “Dean! What’s wrong?” Sam asked again. His hand was gripping Dean’s tightly, and he looked like he was on the edge of an anxiety attack.

“Fine,” Dean panted. “Just…hurts.” Sam nodded silently and reached for one of the IVs hanging by the bed, fiddling with it for a moment before bringing his attention back to Dean.

“The nurse showed me how to increase your morphine drip,” Sam explained. Dean waited eagerly for the drug to enter his system, and wasn’t disappointed a few minutes later when he felt a heavenly numbness sweep through his body.

“Water?” he asked, and Sam was there with the bottle. Dean sucked greedily, feeling like a newborn baby getting his first taste of milk. Normally, the comparison would’ve bothered him, his inability to perform even the most basic of functions. Yet…he didn’t really care. Like, at all.

 _Gotta be the morphine_ , he thought, then pouted when Sam took away his precious water.

“If you drink too much too fast, you’ll puke,” Sam said with an apologetic smile. Dean grunted his acquiescence, closing his eyes to sleep some more. They flew open a second later when he remembered Sam’s earlier words, right when he’d been waking up.

“Wait…did you call me _baby_?” Sam’s blush was as good as a yes, and Dean stared at him in confusion. And maybe a little bit in hopefulness, too. “Wha—why…um. Huh?” he stuttered. Sam bit his lip and looked away, refusing to meet Dean’s eyes. His fingers played absently with the blanket covering Dean, and he shifted restlessly in his seat.

“Sam.”

Sam cleared his throat but kept his gaze averted. “You, uh. Did you…um. Do you remember any dreams you might have had?”

_You mean the one where we confessed our undying love for each other in field of flowers then kissed like we were in some kind of sappy romantic movie? Yes._

“…Why?” he said instead. When Sam didn’t answer, Dean realized he’d have to give him a little more than that. Dream-Sam had promised him that his real Sam felt the same, _and_ he’d called him baby. _Baby_. That kind of thing didn’t just slip out, especially when talking to your _brother_.

“I had a pretty vivid dream right before I woke up,” Dean admitted, and Sam’s eyes snapped back to his.

“You remember it?”

“Every detail.”

“Don’t hate me,” Sam said, and nothing good ever followed that, “but you were kinda talking in your sleep.”

“Wh-what do you mean?”

“Well, it sounded like you were having a conversation with…someone, and you sorta, uh, said everything out loud.”

“Shit,” Dean hissed, gulping. The air was thick with tension, like they were perched precariously on the edge of something five miles high, and the next minute would decide which direction they would fall.

But Sam wasn’t running; hell, he didn’t even look uncomfortable. In fact, he almost looked…hopeful. Dean knew without a doubt which direction he wanted to fall, and he decided right then and there that it was now or never.

“I meant every word,” he said quietly. Sam’s smile was small but his eyes shone with tears. He leaned forward, once again resting his head on Dean’s shoulder.

“I don’t know exactly what my dream-self told you, but I’m pretty sure I meant all of it, too,” Sam whispered.

Dean laughed shakily, stunned that this had been so easy. For years, they’d had trouble communicating, so he had no idea how something this life-altering had been so…simple.

Well, they were _soulmates_. That probably had something to do with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yayayayay!


	14. How to Flirt with Your Brother and Avoid Insurance Fraud

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is shorter than usual, which I kind of hate doing, but I just wanted to get it out and there and move on to the next part.

This new thing between them felt fragile, though not the kind of fragile that made Dean feel like he was juggling five Faberge eggs. It was the kind of fragile that he experienced when he got his first gun; he handled it with care, with _reverence_ , not because it would break if he dropped it but because he wanted it to last forever; he wanted it to be as breathtakingly beautiful in fifty years as it was the day it fired its first bullet.

Their relationship was built on three decades of taking care of each other, of living and dying for each other. They’d fought and they’d walked away more than a few times, but they always found their way back to each other, usually sooner instead of later. They had always been in it together, and they always would be. And not even a one hundred and two-story drop from the top of the Empire State Building could shatter that.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Dean spent six more days in the hospital. Those days (and nights) were filled with playful flirting and pink cheeks and touches just this side of innocent. Hugs lingered longer each time and their bodies inched closer and closer as the days went by.

At Dean’s hesitant request, Sam left the room when the nurse came in to help him with hygiene-related business.

“It’s okay, Dean, I get it,” Sam soothed as Dean chewed nervously on his bottom lip. Sure, they’d stitched each other up—sometimes in some very private areas of the body—with their clothes shredded and a bottle of whiskey almost emptied by the time they were done. And Dean couldn’t even count the number of times they’d accidentally flashed each other. It was part of their life, something that was neither questioned nor shied away from. But it was different now.

Sam wouldn’t be stitching up his brother’s left ass cheek after a werewolf hunt went sideways; he’d be watching a nurse change out his _more-than-brother_ ’s catheter. It was completely different. Dean wasn’t embarrassed by the situation per se, but he didn’t want the first time that Sam saw him naked since this romantic relationship had blossomed to be the sight of him getting a small tube shoved up his…

Yeah.

Sam got it.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

The night before Dean’s discharge date, they sat side-by-side, pressed together from shoulders to hips to ankles on Dean’s bed while watching the TV hanging on the opposite wall. There was none of the usual silent scrambling for clothes and other personal affects strewn about the room; no timing the nurses’ rounds then sneaking out while no one was watching.

Basically Dean’s whole left side was broken, so stealth was out of the question. Plus, he was already scheduled for multiple checkups in the weeks to come, two of them specifically for getting his casts removed. Plus he’d need legal pain meds, and…well. It wasn’t like they had anywhere else to be, anything else that needed doing. There were no monsters responsible for this, either of the supernatural or the human variety, which meant there was nothing for them to hunt down.

So they waited like the responsible adults they were trying to be, though neither was particular good at being calm about it.

Dean had needed to increase his painkillers that day, his anxiety making his body stiff and his muscles tense, which then made it difficult for him to ignore the constant background pain that he’d been getting accustomed to. He was more than ready to be out of the hospital; what had him worried was the insurance issue. Before, they’d either lied and used something fake or stolen, or just completely skipped out on the bill. But this was their home now, there was no escaping to go on the road. And committing insurance fraud using their real names in a town that they’d probably end up staying in for the next ten years couldn’t exactly be considered a smart plan. They’d have to think of something else, and quick.

Sam, meanwhile, was also being twitchy, though Dean knew it was for a different reason. Earlier in the evening, when Dr. Mitchell had come by and given them the good news that Dean would, in fact, be able to leave the next morning, Sam had launched into a hundred different questions, basically all of them boiling down to “Are you sure it’s not too early?” Mona had assured and reassured him, but Sam had been relentless. And while Dean would never consider his brother a pessimist—quite the opposite, actually—he did have a tendency to get _extremely_ overprotective and overconcerned whenever it came to Dean’s health or well-being. Not that Dean was any different; hell, he was the person Sam had learned all that from.

Once the doctor had left and the nurse had helped Dean take care of nightly business and he and Sam were finally alone again, he’d slid over to make space on his bed, patting the mattress beside him. Sam had clambered up and they settled down, their bodies too big to fit in the confined space yet somehow making it work. Their closeness, Sam’s hot skin against Dean’s own, Sam’s arm wrapped around Dean’s shoulders…it all immediately helped Dean to relax. He could feel Sam doing the same, because it had always been like that. Having each other alive and whole and within arm’s reach would always override every anxiety, every problem, from how to get insurance coverage to how to stop the fucking Devil. Everything insurmountable problem fell away, leaving just them.

Feeling suddenly fearless (or maybe just reckless), Dean turned his head towards Sam. His brother immediately and subconsciously mirrored the action, leaving their faces just inches apart. Without pausing to let insecurities or indecisiveness change his mind, Dean closed the space between them, pressing his lips softly against Sam’s.

It was brief and chaste, and Dean didn’t think he’d ever kissed anyone like that. But this was his brother. This was different.

They parted after a few seconds, both of them breathing quickly like a marathon had just taken place. Dean pulled back enough to see Sam’s face. He’d seen a million different expressions on his brother’s face, but he’d never seen this one: hazel eyes burning dark, flushed cheeks, mouth open slightly, invitingly…

Softness was thrown out the window as Dean launched himself towards Sam, their mouths meeting once again but this time in a crushing kiss. There was nothing chaste about it this time, and it quickly devolved into wet and sloppy and biting. As their mouths fought to get closer, Dean’s right hand came up and he threaded his fingers through Sam’s hair. Gripping his locks tight, Dean tugged sharply, eliciting the dirtiest moan he’d ever heard in his life.

The fact that it came from his brother made it thousand times hotter.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he hissed brokenly into Sam’s mouth. Sam, apparently not one to beat around the bush, bypassed every uninjured part of Dean’s body and went straight for his cock. His large handed landed on Dean’s crotch, bringing Dean’s awareness away from his brother’s mouth. He hadn’t realized he was hard until just then, and Sam wasted no time in stroking him through the thin fabric of the loose boxers he was wearing, the only thing he’d been able to get on over his leg cast.

He could feel his brother gyrating against his him, the long, hard line of his cock hot against his thigh. The visual ratcheted up Dean’s arousal, and he felt heat pool low in his belly as his balls drew up tight.

“Fuck, Sammy. Gonna…come.” Sam’s hand released its grip around his cock, but before Dean had time to complain Sam’s hand was sliding under the waistband of his boxers and resuming its ministrations. “Oh, Jesus,” Dean cursed, his orgasm burning through him as he came embarrassingly fast.

“Oh god, that’s so fucking hot,” Sam whispered brokenly, then attached his mouth to Dean’s neck, his teeth clamping down almost painfully as his whole body tensed. A moment later, Dean could see the tell-tale wetness of Sam’s own orgasm seeping through his sweatpants. The sight soothed Dean’s nerves, his embarrassment at coming so fast tempered by Sam’s own teenage-quick trigger.

“God,” Dean choked out a relieved laugh; he expected his thoughts to be all jumbled and heavy with guilt but instead he just felt…well, _happy_. Plain and simple happiness, no guilt or second thoughts attached. He got a sweet peck on his lips and then Sam was up and off the bed, making his way towards the bathroom.

“Gonna get something to clean you up,” he said before disappearing and reappearing with a wet washcloth. He insisted on wiping Dean clean, his touch gentle and caring. After taking care of his own mess, Sam tossed the washcloth into the bin with the other soiled linens, then settled back down in his chair by the bed.

“You don’t wanna…?” Dean asked, gesturing towards the empty spot beside him.

“Of course I do!” Sam said hurriedly. “But that bed is tiny and, well, I don’t want to interrupt your sleep. I mean, it’s your last night here and you need to rest as much as possible and—”

“Sammy,” Dean interrupted his brother’s rambling. “It’s cool.”

“Yeah? I’m not making you feel…”

“What, like a two-bit whore? No, Sam. Pretty sure it’d be hard to pull a hit-it-and-quit-it on your own brother. Not that I’m worried about that anyways,” Dean added. Sam rolled his eyes but Dean caught the quick flash of a smile. He settled back in the middle of the mattress, pulling the blanket up to his chin, eyelids immediately drooping from the combination of an orgasm and a morphine drip.

“Night,” Sam whispered. “I…love you.” Dean opened his mouth to respond but he was asleep before any sound came out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments >>> ambrosia  
> ❤ ❤ ❤


	15. Other Practical Uses for Wheelchairs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I actually had this chapter finished a good 4 or 5 days ago, but I had written it all down in a notebook (because for some reason I'm getting a lot more writing done that way). So then I had to type it all up, and that is so unbelievably time-consuming and boring and yeah. I did edit a bit as I typed, but usually I read through the entire chapter one last time for the final edit before I post it. I didn't do that this time, so if you find anything weird feel free to let me know. I'll probably go through it in a day or two anyways, though.
> 
>  
> 
> Also, this chapter took a turn that I was not expecting. (Don't worry, it's a good turn.)

Sam pushed Dean’s wheelchair through the bunker doors, and Dean’s grin at finally being home slipped away. The realization that their home was extremely ill-suited for someone with multiple broken bones and thus limited range of movement soured his good mood immediately. He couldn’t help the small, frustrated grunt that escaped him.

Sam was standing rigidly next to him, surveying the room below as he obviously came to the same conclusion. “Um…maybe we should’ve parked in the garage. Dammit, why didn’t I park in the garage? God, I’m an id—”

“Sam!” Dean cut his brother off a more sharply than he’d intended. It was just…every time Sam beat himself up over something, especially the small, insignificant mistakes or the ones that weren’t even his fault, it set Dean on edge. He hated hearing his little brother berate himself like that. So he took a deep breath and tried again.

“Sam,” he repeated, voice much softer, “it’s okay. It’s not like I thought about that either. Just help me down the stairs, yeah? I think that’ll be easier than trying to get me back inside the car.” It was just placation, it was the truth; even with Sam’s help, it had taken Dean and embarrassingly long time to maneuver himself into the Impala’s back seat without straining his broken ribs or bumping his casted limbs painfully against something. And getting back out of the car? That had been about ten times worse.

Sam blew out a breath, sounding tired and perhaps a touch disappointed in himself, but at least the guilt seemed to be gone.

“Yeah, of course.” He dropped the small duffel bag full of their dirty clothes and toiletries to the floor, then locked the wheels of the wheelchair to keep it from moving.

Dean hated that thing, hated being pushed around like an invalid—a far cry from just a few months ago, when he’d been going toe to toe with angels and demons and every murderous monster in between. He and Sam had had a long and rather heated argument over the wheelchair usage, but Sam had eventually won. Dean blamed the morphine for his decreased arguing abilities; Sam had just called him pigheaded and then smiled smugly at his victory.

Dean pushed out of the chair and Sam hurried to his side, wrapping his arm gingerly around Dean’s tender waist. They made it down the stairs without incurring any more injuries, and it didn’t take them nearly as long as Dean had anticipated. He allowed a rare moment of gratefulness that Sam was bigger than him. But only a moment.

“Couch or bed?” Sam asked after he had retrieved the bag and wheelchair from the top of the stairs and settled a grumbling Dean back down into it.

“Bathroom,” Dean replied. “I’ve had fucking _sponge baths_ for the last week. I need a _real_ shower.”

“Dean…”

“Sam. Look, I don’t care if we have to cover half my body in trash bags to keep the casts dry, I’m taking a fucking shower!”

“Okay, okay!” Sam said, holding his hands up in placation. “It’s just…” he paused, biting at his bottom lip nervously.

“It’s just what?”

“I mean, at the hospital, you always sent me out of the room when the nurse came in to, y’know, help you with stuff. Which I totally understand,” he added hastily, but then paused again.

“And…?” Dean prompted.

“And there’s no nurse here. But you can’t take care of that stuff by yourself yet, Dean. So are you okay with me helping?”

“As long as you promise not to come at me with a catheter,” Dean joked, eliciting a weak smile from his brother. He sighed and reached out, pulling Sam forward until he was standing between the vee of Dean’s legs. “I’m serious, Sammy. I felt dirty and gross, lying in that bed for a week and not being able to properly shower or brush my teeth or even pee using an actual toilet.

“But I’m totally up for you washing my hair in the shower,” he said, dropping his voice low and punctuating the suggestive statement with a wink. Sam blushed and didn’t even attempt to hide his arousal behind an eye roll or a bitch face. “So,” Dean continued, looping a finger through the belt loop of Sam’s jeans and giving it a tug, “whaddya say we get naked, wet and gloriously soapy?”

“Y-yeah, oh—okay,” Sam sputtered.

“And we should probably bring the chair in,” Dean said as he gestured to his seat, “in case I get a little dizzy and need to sit.” Sam nodded and his expression turned serious. And, well, Dean couldn’t very well stand for that, so you ogled his brother obscenely and added, “Also, it’s the perfect height for me to give you a blow job.”

Sam’s flushed cheeks went from bubblegum pink to Lolita red and he let out a strangled, needy sound. Dean cackled and tugged at Sam’s belt loop again. Then to drive his point home, he leaned forward and mouthed wetly at the growing bulge at Sam’s jeans-covered crotch.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Dean actually was quite glad that they’d brought in the wheelchair, because halfway through the shower the heat and steam started to make him lightheaded and he had to sit down to keep from passing out. On the plus side, the angle offered him an excellent view of Sam’s perky ass, and Dean licked his lips as dirty images flashed through his head.

“Are you staring at my ass again?” Sam snarked but he didn’t turn around to bless Dean with a full-frontal view.

“Just admiring the _sweet_ view,” Dean drawled. “And waiting for you to stop hogging the loofah—which is _mine_ , by the way—and to come help me wash my hair like you promised.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sam grumbled, trying to sound annoyed but failing. Instead, he seemed…nervous. And maybe even embarrassed.

Feeling a little reckless and a lot horny, Dean reached out with his good arm and grabbed Sam’s hip, pulling him back until his ass was just inches from Dean’s face. _Here goes nothin’_ , he thought, releasing Sam’s hip to palm one ass cheek before spreading his brother open as best as possible. He got a split-second glance as Sam’s pink little hole before he dove in, the tip of his tongue meeting the tightly furled muscle. His movements were tentative at first, evidence of his complete inexperience. But he soon grew more confident, and the kitten licks turned to full-on laving across Sam’s hole.

Sam yelped in shock, immediately trying to pull out of Dean’s grasp but then just as quickly he was pushing back, searching out more of Dean’s hot, teasing tongue. Dean was intoxicated, both by the taste of his brother and by the filthy moans spilling from his pretty mouth. In his entire life, Dean had never heard anything so fucking hot.

Sam bent forward, hands braced against the tile wall as his back arched, causing his ass to jut and giving Dean even better access. Water sluiced down his back and assaulted Dean’s face, but it barely even registered…until he realized he could use the increased wetness to his advantage. He released the death grip he still had on Sam’s hip and slowly slid a finger into Sam’s hole alongside his tongue. Surprisingly, Sam took it like a pro, not even tensing at the added intrusion. At that thought, Dean was burning with curiosity, the idea of Sam having already experienced this with someone else making Dean’s lizard brain hiss in jealousy. He didn’t want to ruin the mood, but he had to ask; he had to _know_.

“Sammy…you ever done this before?”

“Huh?” Sam’s brain had obviously short-circuited in the last five minutes, and Dean smiled proudly at his ability to reduce his brother to a quivering, fucked-out mess.

“ _This_ ,” Dean replied, pumping his finger in and out of Sam a few times.

“Oh. Um, maybe,” Sam said timidly, and Dean’s jealousy reached dizzying heights.

“ _Who_?”

“Myself, Dean,” Sam snorted. “My own fingers, by myself, all alone.” At the explanation, Dean perked up, his jealousy evaporating to make way for pure lust.

“Good,” he growled possessively, then his mouth was once again occupied exploring the most intimate part of his brother’s body. Sam was loosening up, enough that Dean was able to press a second finger in, Sam biting out a curse as he did so.

“Babe, you okay?” Dean asked, freezing, afraid that he’d done too much too fast. In all honesty, Dean knew fuck-all about ass play and anal sex. Sure, he’d stumbled across his fair share of it over the many years of watching porn, but that was _porn_. Dean could appreciate it while being fully aware that it was far from some shining, infallible beacon of knowledge.

“God, yeah,” Sam replied breathlessly. He began rocking backwards, burying Dean’s fingers deeper into him and whimpering incoherently.

The sight alone of his brother fucking himself down on Dean’s fingers nearly had Dean coming untouched. He grimaced and bit down at his tongue, using the sharp pain to keep his orgasm at bay. He wasn’t done with Sam quite yet.

He twisted his fingers this way and that, searching inside Sam’s brutally tight heat for that mythical bundle of nerves that he’d only ever heard of. He brushed over something slightly different in texture from the rest of Sam’s inner muscles, eliciting a cry of pleasure from his brother. Dean concentrated his movements there, rubbing relentlessly as Sam’s keening got louder and louder.

Suddenly, Sam’s ass was clenching almost painfully around Dean’s fingers and tongue, his mouth spilling curse after curse as he came. Dean desperately wished for the use of his other arm at that point, wanted to wrap his hand around Sam’s thick cock and feel him spill hot and sticky over his fingers. But the best he could do was work Sam through his orgasm with short, quick jabs of his tongue and the pads of his fingers stroking his prostate.

He felt Sam finally come down from his orgasm, so Dean removed his fingers slowly. His brother sank to the ground bonelessly, and Dean was momentarily alarmed that he was about to pass out on him. He wouldn’t be able to help Sam, wasn’t even sure he could get up to turn the water off and—

Sam spun around and swallowed Dean’s cock down in one smooth motion until the head was nudging against the back of his throat. Dean let out something between a gasp and a moan, and it was over embarrassingly fast. His orgasm ripped through him, his eyes rolling back in pleasure as he gripped Sam’s hair and pulled at it roughly. Sam groaned and the vibrations around Dean’s cock felt like heaven. Sam swallowed spurt after spurt of Dean’s release, some of the come dribbling out the corners of his mouth. Dean wanted to like his brother’s lips clean.

Sam released Dean only when his cock was completely spent. Dean’s body mirrored that limpness; the rush of the orgasm on top of his lightheadedness was too much for him to handle. The gorgeous view of his brother kneeling in front of him looking utterly debauched started to go fuzzy. Sam called his name but his brother’s voice sounded distant and garbled, like they were under water.

“’S awesome, Sammy,” Dean mumbled. He smiled lazily and his eyelids flutter closed; he let the dark silence wash over him and tug him down into unconsciousness.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Consciousness returned to Dean slowly. He let himself linger in limbo, neither pushing to wake up further nor to go back to sleep. Eventually, though, he began to wake up more, and his senses sharpened one by one.

He was surrounded by softness, his body cradled by clouds and warmed by the early summer sun. Or…no, that was his memory foam mattress and his favorite blanket (that he’d paid an exorbitant amount of money for and then lied to Sam about the price, but it was just soft and fluffy to pass up). Dean shifted in his bed and bone-deep pain thrummed throughout the left side of his body. He sighed as everything came back to him—the car wreck, the broken bones, oh _god_ , the catheter. Then he remembered what had come after—the dream, his confession to Sam and his surprise upon discovering that the feelings were mutual, the flirting and kisses, oh _fuck_ , the _shower_ …

Dean smiled and forced his eyes open, eyelids still heavy with sleep. The pain wasn’t gone, and he definitely needed something to numb it soon. But the sight of Sam asleep in a chair pulled up beside the bed, slumped over so his head was resting on top of his folded arms on the mattress helped Dean to push back the worst of his pain, at least for the moment. It was so similar to the sight that had greeted Dean when he’d woken up in the hospital, and he chuckled at their predictability. One of them was hurt? The other never left his side, no matter what.

Dean’s ribs began throbbing even more insistently, and he gritted his teeth against the whimper threatening to escape.

“Sam,” he whispered, nudging his brother gently. Then, realizing there was no reason for him to whisper, he spoke again. “Sam. Wake up!”

Sam’s head shot up and he looked around in frantic confusion, blinking rapidly as he got his bearings. His eyes landed on Dean and widened in relief. He slipped off the chair and sunk down beside the bed, grasping Dean’s hand in his own.

“Oh my god, you scared the shit outta me, Dean!”

“How long’ve I been out?”

“’Bout six hours. You okay?”

“Yeah. No. I mean…” Dean shifted again, letting out a pained grunt. He smiled sheepishly up at Sam. “I could use some painkillers.”

“Shit. Yeah, of course! Um…” Sam got up and rummaged around the room, looking a little dazed. He located the pill bottle and shook out two pills, handing them off to Dean along with a bottle of water.

Dean swallowed the pills and the water greedily. When he was done, he studied his brother closely. There were dark bruises under Sam’s bloodshot eyes, and his skin was paler than it had ever been. And yet…he was beautiful. Objectively, Dean had known this for years; now, though, he finally allowed himself to actually _look_ , and not as a brother but as a lover. Sam was tall and strong, his shirt (that Dean was pretty sure Sam had stolen from him) pulling tight across his broad shoulders and muscular chest. his sweatpants hung low on his hips, and every time he moved Dean was rewarded with a tantalizing flash of skin.

Dean licked his lips as his gaze traveled down past the waistband of Sam’s sweats. He stared hungrily at the impressive bulge, and his own dick began to perk up in interest.

“Damn, Sammy, you’re so _hot_. Look fucking delicious, good enough to eat. _Again_.” Dean’s voice was low and raspy, and his words were thick and slurred around the edges. And fuck, he hadn’t actually meant to _say_ any of that, and he flushed hotly at his own forwardness.

Sam had been puttering absently around the room, and he froze at Dean’s brazen declaration. He turned slowly to face his brother, his own cheeks painted a matching crimson. Dean giggled. Sam’s lips were bright pink and puffy from his adorable habit of biting them whenever he was anxious, and they were shiny-slick from his spit. The whole look gave Dean the impression that Sam had gotten a bit crazy at the makeup counter, and he giggled again.

“You’re so purrrrrrdy,” he purred, punctuating it with a leer that ended up more as a dopey, lopsided smile. Sam, meanwhile, was staring at him as if he’d suddenly sprouted antlers. To be fair, in their line of work, the possibility wasn’t all that far-fetched. Well, their _previous_ line of work.

“Can’t believe we hadta retire, Sammy!” Dean cried out in anguish, his previous semi-arousal completely forgotten. The abrupt change in topic and mood spurred Sam into action, and he rushed to Dean’s side, his hands fluttering around Dean’s prone body like he wasn’t sure where he should touch.

Ironic, since just six hours earlier Dean’s tongue had been buried in Sam’s ass.

“Dunno if tha’s _ironic_. Stupid Alannis Mor—Morrsi—Mor-whatever. Ruined tha’ word f’everyone. I jus’ wanna ‘member that, uh, whazzit called? Oh yeah! Rim job!” Dean babbled, tongue feeling heavy and unwieldly in his mouth. Sam choked on a breath.

“ _What the hell_?” He gaped at Dean, his expression unreadable. Dean didn’t understand his brother’s confusion; he was making perfect sense. Probably. And Sam was so smart, so why wasn’t he understanding? Dean opened his mouth to explain but was stopped short by Sam’s finger against his lips.

Of course, there was only one thing Dean could do with that, so he stuck his tongue out and curled it around his brother’s finger before sucking the digit into his mouth. His mind had come full circle back to horny, and he looked up at Sam coyly, batting his stupid, girly lashed. Hey, at least they were good for one thing.

“Okay, wow,” Sam said flatly, obviously not sharing in Dean’s enthusiasm. Mostly he just seemed to be hovering around shocking disbelief. There wasn’t even a trace of heat in those expressive hazel eyes, which really was just a shame, Dean decided. Sam withdrew his finger, slowly and almost clinically from Dean’s mouth. Dean glared and pouted in disappointment.

“C’mon, Sammy,” he goaded, “wanna taste you again, wanna feel you.”

“Dean, no,” Sam replied firmly.

“Why not?” Dean knew he was whining at this point, but he didn’t particularly care. How could his brother turn him down all of a sudden? Why wasn’t he getting Sam all hot and bothered like he had earlier?

“Dean. You’re _so_ high right now, it’s not even funny. Should’ve only given you one pill…”

“Sammmmmmy, I’m fiiiiiiiiiine,” Dean insisted in another high-pitched whine.

“No, Dean, you’re _really_ not.”

Dean felt his eyes prickle with tears and his bottom lip start to quiver. “Y-you don’t w-want me?” he asked shakily, a dry sob escaping with the last word.

“God, Dean, of course I do!” Sam carded his fingers lovingly through Dean’s hair, then trailed his hand down to caress Dean’s cheek and brush away an errant tear. “ _I do_. But you’re really out of it right now, so we need to wait, okay? Just for a little while.”

“O-okay, Sammy.” Dean sniffled sadly, but he trusted his brother’s judgment, probably more than he trusted his own. “I trust you,” he said then, just to hear it out loud. Just to make Sam knew that he really, truly did.

“Thanks, baby,” Sam murmured, and Dean reveled in the endearment. Usually, he hated pet names; he viewed them as something people used when they couldn’t remember the name of their one-night-stand. But Sam was the furthest thing from a fleeting hookup; Sam was permanent, _eternal_ , and he could call Dean ‘baby’ whenever and wherever he pleased.

“I’m gonna go make you some food. Wait here?”

“Where exactly would I go?” Dean snarked back with a wink. He could feel some of the haziness due to the painkillers starting to recede from his mind, though his body was still blissfully ache-free. Sam smiled and rolled his eyes, the action pure fondness and devoid of any real annoyance.

“Right. So, sandwiches okay?”

“Did you say sausages?”

“You’re shameless, you know that?”

“Mmm,” Dean smirked, settling back into the bed and closing his eyes. Finally able to move around without the intense pain from before was making him antsy, but the pills were making him calm and drowsy. It was an odd combination to say the least. “Beer?” he asked hopefully. Even with his eyes closed he knew Sam was lingering at the door.

Sam scoffed. “Sure. Because _that’s_ what you need right now.” Cracking open one eye, Dean peered at Sam.

“Actually…” His hand drifting down to his crotch, cupping the bulge there. “What I need is—”

“Oh my _god_ , keep it in your pants!” Sam yelped, his cheeks tomato-red. He spun on his heel and rushed out of the room, leaving a chuckling Dean in his wake. Who knew Sam was so bashful when it came to sex?

Wicked schemes began to form in Dean’s mind. Yeah. He was _definitely_ going to enjoy this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos (and maybe someone can send me one of those speech-to-text things, like 'ok google' but for smutty fanfic writers?)


	16. Memory Foam is the New Kumbaya

Dean figured he’d sleep like a baby now that he was back in his own room and bed. He was wrong. First, Sam had retired to his own room after much urging from Dean; because of the size of Dean’s mattress (just a double), all of his mobility issues, and the intrusiveness of his casts, there was no way both he and Sam would fit on there comfortably for an entire night. And Dean refused to let his little brother spend another back-breaking minute falling asleep in a chair by his bed. So Sam went down the hall, and Dean cursed the situation of finally getting to have Sam but still not able to _have_ Sam. If that made sense.

Apparently even just a single pain pill had a bit of a kick.

The lack of Sam’s presence was disconcerting, in a way. Since being admitted to the hospital, Dean hadn’t slept straight through the night. (Well, _after_ the whole quasi-coma thing.) Partly because he’d been constantly woken up by a nurse to take his vitals, but also because he’d been restless. Every few hours, he’d jerk out of whatever weird Picasso- or Escher-like dream he was being subjected to (courtesy of the morphine), and for a few minutes he would gaze at his little brother, run his fingers over Sam’s hand lightly, and take deep breaths of the pheromones radiating from Sam; he would use those sensations to ground himself, to re-order his reality and turn it right-side-out again.

He’d also gotten used to drinking water every time he woke up, not having to concern himself with making constant trips to the bathroom. (That catheter still wasn’t worth it.) He realized quickly that first night home, though, that his bladder no longer had the option to empty at any time it pleased, and it would _not_ be denied.

The third time Dean woke Sam up with his yelling—because for some reason, Sam’s room was all the way down the hall from Dean’s and they’d both had the stupid idea to close their doors—Sam was understandably irritated.

“’m sorry,” Dean said sheepishly; it wasn’t like he _wanted_ to wake his brother up in the middle of the night—okay, he _did_ , but he wanted the result to be sweat and come, not cursing and pee. Sam just grunted, and Dean knew the non-answer was his brother’s attempt not to take out his frustration on him because it really wasn’t Dean’s fault. Still, Dean made a silent vow not to take one more sip of water before morning came.

The trip to and from the bathroom left Dean panting and aching, and he crashed back onto his mattress harder than he’d meant to. He flinched, waiting for the inevitable sharp jolt of pain, but it didn’t come. Thank god for memory foam mattresses.

“Be right back,” Sam muttered, disappearing from Dean’s room without a glance back at his brother. Dean wanted to be hurt at the curt dismissal, but he couldn’t fault Sam; after all, Dean was plenty annoyed with _himself_ , too.

A few moments later, he heard something heavy being dragged down the hall and then Sam reappeared in the doorway, towing his mattress behind him. It was exactly the same as a few months earlier, when Dean had hauled his mattress into Sam’s room when Sam had been having all those horrid nightmares.

One more trip for his comforter and pillows, then Sam was settling down onto his makeshift bed.

“We really need some way for you to pee without having to go all the way to the bathroom, at least until the pain isn’t so bad,” Sam murmured into the silence. Dean thought his brother was already asleep, and the soft voice made him to jump in surprise.

“ _No_ catheters!” Dean growled, and was rewarded with a gentle laugh from Sam.

“You’re really stuck on that, aren’t you?”

“Sam. I had a _tube_ stuck up my _dick_. I couldn’t control when I peed, and I couldn’t jack off for more than a _week_.” That got a snort from Sam.

“’s not like either of us hasn’t experienced that before.”

“Well, y-yeah, but…” Dean sputtered.

“Don’t worry, Dean. I promise no catheters. No bedpans either, because if that spilled, I would _not_ want to clean it up.”

“Just bring me a something I can hold with one hand and put a lid on after.”

“Mm. Sounds like a plan,” Sam mumbled, and Dean could feel his brother starting to fade.

“G’night, Sammy,” he whispered, and was answered with a light, steady snoring.

 _Figures_ , Dean thought. _Only Sam would be able to make snoring sound adorable_.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

They made it two more days like that before Same announced that he was going out for the afternoon. Dean’s stomach dropped, not that he hadn’t been expecting it. But he’d been _hoping_ …

“I just need to run a few errands. Mostly we need food,” Sam said, interrupting Dean’s growing freakout with his logical, even tone. Dean snapped his head up to stare at his brother. “Food…?” Sam repeated slowly. “Our kitchen is kinda empty…”

Okay, so maybe Dean was still hopped up on painkillers a bit, but that didn’t make him _stupid_. Just…overly emotional.

“You okay?” Sam’s eyebrows knitted together in concern. Dean pushed his newfound drama queen tendencies down and took a deep breath before answering.

“Yeah. Of course, yeah. You, uh, wanna take Baby?” The number two shittiest thing about his casts was that Dean couldn’t drive for another five weeks.

“Sure. Thanks, babe.” Sam smiled and pressed a kiss to Dean’s temple, causing the knot that had been forming in his chest to unravel immediately.

“Bitch,” Dean grunted before he could break out into a power ballad love song. REO Speedwagon’s _Can’t Fight This Feeling_ was a classic, but also a little cliché and overused. No, Sam deserved something epic, like _I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing_ by Aerosmith.

Wow, this oxycodone was making him _really_ loopy.

“Jerk.”

“Sap.”

“You love it.”

Sam ended the banter with a wink and another kiss, this time on the tip of Dean’s nose. He turned and strutted from the room, exaggerating the sway of his hips and drawing Dean’s attention straight to his perfect ass. Dean quickly checked his mouth for any escaped drool before groaning with frustrated lust. Because the number one shittiest thing about his casts? No sex.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Not even ten minutes had passed since Sam left before Dean was downing two more pills. He knew Sam would be pissed, thinking that it was way too excessive. Sam had been continuously paranoid about how many pills Dean took since he himself had accidentally overdosed just a few months ago. But right now, Sam wasn’t here to argue, and Dean didn’t have to worry about getting all emotional and confessing something stupidly embarrassing that he wouldn’t even remember saying two hours later.

And in all honesty, his body had been hurting quite a bit that day. The ache had started in his leg, the pain waking him up a good three hours earlier than what was acceptable. The first pill had taken the edge off a bit, but as the morning wore on, one just wasn’t cutting it.

So two more it was, Dean promising himself that he’d skip his next dosage. And then he passed out.

Unsurprisingly, he woke up almost five hours later to find that he’d completely slept through his brother’s return. He struggled up off the couch—and why the fuck had he thought that sleeping on the _couch_ was a good idea?—and looked around sleepily for something to help him hobble towards the bathroom. He cursed himself for actually wishing that the wheelchair was nearby.

“Dean!” Sam called out excitedly as he bounced into the living room like a little kid, eyes shining bright and mischievous. “I have a surprise for you,” he sing-songed, badly off-key.

“Oh yeah?” Dean croaked, throat dry and scratchy from his impromptu nap. Sam darted over to the tables in the library and grabbed a large bottle of water that Dean had usually been keeping with him at all times.

“Yep,” Sam replied, handing Dean the water. He waited anxiously, looking like there was itching powder in his boxers—and yeah, that was a _classic_ —with the way he was twitching while attempting to stand still.

“Okay, lemme see what you got,” Dean said. Sam’s excitement was contagious, and a smile boke out on Dean’s face big enough to match Sam’s grin.

“Okay. C’mon!” Sam turned and got halfway across the room before Dean’s loud clearing of his throat had him hurrying back, cheeks flushed pink as he bumbled out an apology.

“Sorry, sorry, forgot.” Dean just chuckled as Sam wrapped an arm around him, acting as a giant-sized crutch for Dean to lean against as they slowly made their way across the room to the hallway. They passed by Dean’s bedroom but didn’t make it as far as Sam’s before they stopped outside a closed door that led to one of the many empty bedrooms.

“Ta da!” Sam exclaimed as he pushed the door open with a flourish.

The room had been scrubbed clean, not a speck of dirt or particle of dust to be found. It was full of things that _definitely_ hadn’t been there when they’d moved into the bunker almost a year ago: thick, shaggy rugs; a tall bookshelf half-full of what looked like non-hunting-related books, miniature cacti in cute little pots, and a traditional dancing stick (which Dean had thought he’d lost) that had been given to him by a Choctaw Chief in Oklahoma for a hunt from ten years earlier; and a large dresser that was way more modern in design than the one that was currently in his room.

All of that was quickly catalogued in Dean’s mind to spend more time on later, because his main focus was immediately drawn to the massive bed that dominated the center of the room. It was bigger than any bed he’d ever seen in real life—a depressing reminder of all the negative aspects to the hunter lifestyle—but it was just too damn amazing to dwell on that fact. It sat low to the ground on a simple wood platform and was covered by a white comforter that looked fluffy enough to be made from clouds. There were pillows galore piled at the head of the bed (and Dean would most likely tease Sam mercilessly about decorating like a girl) in white and varying shades of blue. On either side stood matching bedside tables with lamps on top. Everything looked expensive and brand new, which was unheard of for them. They didn’t get to _do_ brand new.

“Wow,” Dean whispered breathless. “What…” he craned his neck around to stare at Sam, too speechless to finish his question.

“Do you like it?” Sam asked. He bit his lip and dropped his eyes down, both classic signs of him feeling insecure.

“It’s…fucking awesome,” Dean replied immediately, then added, “Um, what _is_ it?” That got a laugh out of Sam, and suddenly his brother was back to his explosive eagerness.

“It’s our new room!” he declared proudly.

“Wait, _what_? Whadya mean?” Maybe it was shock or maybe it was the medicine-induced fog still partially clouding his head, but Dean was having trouble putting two and two together. Or maybe he counted four just fine, but was still in disbelief.

“Well,” Sam began, pausing to sigh dramatically, “I have my own room and you have yours, and I know you were thrilled about having that for the first time ever. But now that we’re _together_ , I thought we should—we _could_ have a new room, one that’s _ours_. Plus, it’s kind of sucked not being able to sleep next to you the last few nights, and I don’t care how girly that sounds, I know you’re thinking the exact same thing!” Sam ended on a yell, blushing before he took a deep breath and cleared his throat.

“Anyways, so I cleaned the room up then got some new furniture and the biggest mattress I could find. It’s a California King pillowtop with a removable memory foam mattress topper.” He finished with a sweeping gesture towards the completely unmissable object of Dean’s current wonderment. But the kicker was how proud and happy Sam was, so it _totally_ wasn’t Dean’s fault when his eyes began tearing up at his brother’s thoughtfulness and caring.

“Thank you,” he choked out a happy sob.

“You’re welcome, Dean,” Sam whispered back, then tugged on Dean’s shirt. “Hey. You wanna test out the bed springs?” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, causing Dean to laugh.

“Hell yes!” Dean agreed emphatically. He was scooped up and tossed onto the bed, landing softly and watching Sam’s cheeks heat up as his clothes fell away.

 _Thank god for memory foam_ , Dean thought as he reclined back and enjoyed the show.


	17. Insecurities

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, this chapter is shorter than I wanted and unedited and took me way too long to write considering what it is. Regardless, I hope you like it, and I promise you a little more meat in the next chapter. Both figuratively and literally ;)

“So, uh, I think I found a job,” Sam said out of the blue. They were laying in bed, Sam curled up against Dean’s good side, their fingers tangled together and resting on Dean’s stomach. He’d been drifting off, had barely heard Sam’s whisper, but the words instantly chased away all thoughts of sleep from Dean’s head.

“Yeah?” He craned his neck up, only managing to get a view of Sam’s wild hair where his head was pillowed on Dean’s chest. “What is it?” Sam said nothing, but the fingers gripping Dean’s began squeezing anxiously, almost rhythmically.

“Sammy? What’s the job?” he pried gently. Sam shifted uncomfortably, finally moving enough that Dean could see his face. “What’s wrong?” Alarm tinged Dean’s voice, garnering a response from his brother.

“Nothing. It’s…” Sam huffed out a sigh, the puff of air making the stray locks around his face float up for a moment. Dean reached up—the movement slow and awkward due to his cumbersome cast—and tucked the hair behind Sam’s ear. “It’s a teaching job. At the local high school,” Sam admitted, voice small and head dropping down to hide from Dean’s gaze.

“Okay… What’s so bad about that?” The look that his brother tossed his way was a classic Sam bitchface. It’d been a while since Dean had earned one of those, and he’d kind of forgotten how fond he was of them. The attitude that usually accompanied them, though? Not so much. But behind the bratty little brother insolence, he could see the genuine emotion in Sam. It wasn’t quite fear, more like…shame?

Ah.

Dean understood now.

“You told me, it feels like forever ago, that you didn’t want teach. That you didn’t feel like it was enough.”

“Yes,” Sam whispered.

“Sammy,” Dean sighed, tugging on his brother’s hand so that Sam scooted back up against his side, “if you think I’m gonna judge you or something because of that, I won’t. You know I won’t.”

“Maybe I’m judging myself,” Sam snapped, then buried his face in the curve of Dean’s neck. Dean pressed a kiss to the top of his head, wishing desperately that he was free of his casts so he could properly hug Sam.

“Sam, it’s okay to change your mind. Remember? There’s no shame in that, people do it all the time. And there’s definitely no shame in wanting to pass your hard-earned knowledge on to others.”

“Yeah?” Sam sounded so insecure, and it broke Dean’s heart just a little.

“Yeah, Sammy. Always.” There was brief silence while Dean let his reassurances sink in and take root, then he spoke again. “So, you wanna tell me what the subject it?” He smiled and tugged on a lock of Sam’s hair, hoping to pull him out of whatever dark hole his little brother’s mind could sometimes spiral down into.

“Uh, yeah. Um, Latin, actually.” Sam’s voice was a little off, almost like he expected Dean not to believe him. And sure, Dean couldn’t remember ever attending a school that offered that particular foreign language, but he also hadn’t been in high school in almost eighteen years. Times were changing.

“Sounds awesome, Sammy.” He flashed Sam another smile and felt his brother’s body relax against his.

“Yeah, well, school put out a job posting looking for a foreign language instructor. Apparently right now they only offer French and Spanish, and they wanted to ‘diversify’ or something.

“But the best part is that I get two class periods to teach an ancient myths and legends class that the kids can take as an elective!” Sam’s eyes sparkled and his enthusiasm grew as he continued to tell Dean about the different classes, how he already had ideas and had even started working on lesson plans, and that he maybe needed to brush up on some of the finer points of Latin grammar so that he’d be able to break it down to an elementary level for his students.

Dean listened raptly, genuinely interested in Sam’s excited rambling. He was so damn happy that Sam was, well, _so damn happy_.

 _Maybe we can actually do this_ , Dean thought. _Maybe we can actually be happy without hunting. Maybe…we can be_ happier.

He never would’ve believed that before, never would’ve imagined even thinking it, but hey. Times were changing.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

_3 weeks later…_

“Babe, I love you, but you’re driving me fucking crazy!” Sam growled, and not in his sexy, ready-to-be-ravished voice.

Dean grimaced but managed to refrain from snapping back and pushing his brother’s irritation into a full-blown argument. He gritted his teeth and swallowed down his own frustration, then his stubborn pride. It wasn’t Sam’s fault that Dean was going absolutely insane from his prolonged period of inactivity and helplessness.

“I know, I know. I’m sorry.” That got a tense sigh from Sam.

“Look, Dean, I’m—I need to go out. For a bit.”

Dean had been hunched over on the couch to avoid Sam’s glare, but at his brother’s declaration he snapped his head up to stare at Sam. He searched Sam’s face, imploring, using his best puppy dog eyes (that he knew would never be as effective as his brother’s) to silently beg Sam to stay. Dean knew he probably looked pathetic, because the last month had not only turned him into a whiny, temperamental child half the time; it had also sucker-punched his self-confidence in the damn face.

The lack of mobility (and ensuing helplessness) was only part of it. The was the first time in Dean’s life that he had a real relationship, one that he was determined to make last until—quite literally—‘til death do them part. Sure, he’d spent a year with Lisa and Ben, but that year had been the closest thing to hell on earth for Dean. He cared about Lisa, as a person and as a friend, but he didn’t particularly care about their relationship, as harsh as that sounded. It had been a distraction, something to keep him alive and moderately sane until he found a way to get Sammy back.

And Cassie…well, Dean had been young, and so naïve, and what he’d thought was love at the time he realized later was just the unfamiliar feelings of being interested in someone even _after_ the sex.

He was also a little jealous. Sam had had Jess, and then Amelia (which Dean was still bitter about, though for different reasons now). Sam had been in love before, and Dean knew that shouldn’t get under his skin the was it did, he knew. But his self-awareness didn’t change the way he felt.

“Hey, earth do Dean!” Sam was in his face, snapping his fingers dangerously close to Dean’s right eyeball. He jerked back, uninterested in taking their new (and legitimate) health insurance for a test drive to the optometrist.

“What?” he snapped, glaring up at his brother and slapping his hand away from his face. Sam stood up quickly and took a few steps back, out of reach once again. The hurt look on his face hardened over to thinly veiled anger.

“Sor- _ry_ ,” he snarked back. “You zoned out for a few minutes and I was worried. But nevermind, I guess.” He huffed and clenched his jaw, then, “I’m going out,” he repeated forcefully.

“Yeah, I heard you,” Dean muttered, turning his head to hide his sheepishness. He knew he was being unfair; he knew that if Sam _didn’t_ leave for a few hours to give them both time to cool off, this would _undoubtedly_ turn into a really nasty fight. It was just…the “few hours” part scared Dean. Because last time Sam left like this? He’d come back reeking of sex, and Dean had stormed off with metaphorical broken heart which led to some very literal broken bones. Not that the car crash was Sam’s fault, obviously.

“Just...text me? Let me know you’re okay?” Dean asked quietly. Sam sighed.

“Of course,” he said, sounding more worn out than angry now. He stepped forward again to drop a quick kiss on Dean’s temple. “I’m sorry. It’s just—”

“No, Sammy. Don’t apologize. I get it. And I’m sorry, too. Just…go on, k? I’ll see you later.”

Sam was up the stairs and out the door in seconds, the echoing slam of the metal door reverberating in Dean’s ear. Dean realized belatedly that he probably should’ve asked his brother to help him up and to the bathroom before leaving.

He attempted to wait it out, turning on the TV and thumbing through the Netflix offerings before choosing some mindless half-hour comedy. He threw back a couple of pain pills, using them more as a sleep aid than a pain killer, since his aches had lessened considerably over the last month. It wasn’t the most responsible thing to do, but he figured that if he could fall asleep, he could avoid having to pee until Sam returned.

Unfortunately, Dean didn’t even get through the first episode before the insistent fullness of his bladder became too much to ignore. Ho he hoisted himself up onto unsteady legs—well, _leg_ —and snagged the crutches that were leaning against the back of the couch. (It had only taken him a few days back at the bunker to realize that he couldn’t get anywhere in the wheelchair without Sam’s help, so they’d found a dusty pair crutches in one of the many storage rooms. Dean was able to hobble around with those as long as he didn’t need to go too far.)

He made his way slowly down the hallway to the bathroom, carefully avoiding the wet spots on the tile floor from his and Sam’s earlier shower. He had a sudden surge of appreciation that he was able to pee without sitting down, because he probably would’ve just ended up being stuck on the toilet for three hours otherwise.

He took care of business then headed towards the sink. Halfway there, his left crutch hit a particular slick patch of tile and flew out from under him. He toppled to the side, grabbing frantically at empty air on his way down. He fell like a tree, his head bouncing off the hard floor painfully. His vision swam, everything contorting into fuzzy waves before blackness started to creep in.

Oddly enough, the last thing he felt wasn’t fear; it was relief that he’d managed to pee _before_ being knocked unconscious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know the drill ♥️


	18. Knobby Knees and Heavenly Ecstasy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, I'm still here and alive. I started a new job at the very end of February and I'm gonna go ahead and blame that for my Great-Wall-of-China-sized writer's block. I'm sorry for the wait in between chapters. I don't like it any more than you do. But I finished training last week and I'm now on my official permanent schedule, so I'm hoping that will help me find my flow again.
> 
> Thank you all so much for sticking with this story and me. Time jump in the next chapter!

Dean shifted and groaned as his body made him aware of how very _not_ happy it was to be laying on the cold, hard…whatever it was that he was laying on. His head, at least, was propped up, though obviously not by his awesome, fluffy pillows that were on his awesome memory foam bed that he _desperately_ craved right now. Whatever his head was on was also kind of hard, though not as hard as the probably-floor that his body was getting intimate with. His makeshift-pillow was also slightly rough and pokey, not pokey like porcupines but pokey like knobby. Boney, maybe.

He blinked his eyes open to a squint, expecting to be assaulted by harsh, bright light. Instead, it was blissfully dark with just a faint glow coming from somewhere behind him. It was enough for him to make out the shape in front of—technically _above_ , but whatever, now was not the time for semantics—him, the blurred edges sharpening as he blinked away the lingering fog of unconsciousness.

“Dean? You with me?” Sam asked, voice strained, practically breathless. His head was hovering above Dean, shaggy hair hanging down and framing his face in an oddly appealing way. He looked upside-down to Dean due to their respective positions; his face was pinched in anxious concern, probably due to Dean’s said position. Which would, of course, be laid out unconscious on the bathroom floor. Most likely that was how Sam had found him. At least his brother hadn’t found him like that _and_ in a puddle of his own pee.

Not that it would have made a puddle. Obviously it would have just soaked into his sweatpants.

Dean wasn’t sure why he was so hung up on the pee thing. Maybe because this was _all_ his stupid bladder’s fault.

“Your…stupid bladder’s fault?” Sam repeated Dean’s thoughts, though in Dean’s non-professional opinion, the delivery was lacking in indignant anger, and the confusion was an unnecessary addition. And how the hell was Sam reading his mind anyways?

“I’m not reading your mind, Dean,” Sam said with a long-suffering sigh.

“Oh.” _That_ he’d said out loud, Dean was positive. He rolled his head a bit from side to side and realized that it was propped up on Sam’s lap, kind of. Sam was sitting cross-legged beneath him, and that would explain the pokiness. Even after Sam had shot up and filled out, his legs had always stayed long and lithe. Most of the time, this was a _very_ good thing. But an adequate pillow they definitely did not make.

“You wanna sit up?” Sam asked.

 _No_ , Dean thought.

“Well, it’s either that or keep laying here with a leaky faucet and my bony knees for company.”

Dean cringed, wondering just how much of his internal monologue had ignored the ‘internal’ part.

“All of it,” Sam answered with a smirk.

 _Awesome_ , Dean thought, wondered if this was going to be _a thing_ now. He didn’t need his brother to know just how often he daydreamed about eating pie while watching Sam wash the Impala, complete with a white tee shirt and denim cutoffs so short they’d made Daisy Duke blush.

“No, I didn’t need to know that,” Sam said. “Although as far as kinks go, this seems much more up your alley than whips and chains or weird pet names. Just…we can do all the high school car wash roleplaying you want as long as you never ask me to call you ‘big daddy’.”

It was a weird combination, blushing from aroused embarrassment while also gagging from some seriously disturbing images.

“Yeah, there are daddy issues and there are _daddy issues_ ,” Sam agreed solemnly, nodding his head quickly. “So, how ‘bout we get you up, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Dean grunted in response.

It was slow-going. Five years in those casts wouldn’t make Dean any less clumsy with them, and no doubt the fall had jolted his ribs because there was a deep, throbbing ache where before it had been just momentary twinges of pain.

Sam guided him out of the bathroom, then turned down the hall in the opposite direction of their bedroom.

“Hey. Bedroom’s the other way, Sammy.”

“But the garage is this way,” Sam said without pausing, continuing to lead Dean away from their glorious bed.

“So?”

“ _So_ , I’m taking you to the urgent care,” Sam stated like it was more than obvious. Dean sputtered, once again cursing his current lack of autonomous mobility.

“Because I hit my head? Sam, that happens to us _all the time_. Literally. _Every week_.”

“You took more pills,” Sam said. His voice cracked, suddenly rough, and it sounded more like an accusation than an observation.

“That’s...what they’re for.” Dean’s reply was hesitant, unsure if it would calm the beast or anger it more. And maybe Dean shouldn’t think of his brother as ‘the beast’, but with the way he was growling just now made it pretty hard to shake that comparison from his mind.

“Sammy, hey, look at me,” Dean said with a quiet urgency that had his brother’s dogged, angry stride faltering. Sam came to a standstill after a few paces and turned his head slowly to look at Dean like it was pure reflex.

“I’m sorry,” Dean started, “and I understand why you’re scared—”

“ _Do you_?” Sam interrupted with a hiss.

“Yes, Sam, I do!” Dean replied hotly, anger seeping into his voice. It was on the tip of his tongue, about to throw Sam’s own accidental overdose in his face because _how_ could his brother think that Dean wasn’t wholly and utterly fucked up from that experience? But he held it back, reigned in the hurt with a few deep breaths.

“I understand, Sammy,” he began again. His voice was low and raspy but the steel edge to it was gone, and he felt his brother relax fractionally where Sam was still pressed up against his side, strong arm wrapped across his back in unwavering support. “I was fucking terrified when you wouldn’t wake up. And I’m not blaming you _at all_ ,” Dean continued in a rush, seeing that look starting to form in Sam’s eyes, the look that Dean had been the source of too many fucking times. It was a mix of hurt and shame and apology and self-doubt. “Hell, _I_ didn’t even realize how much pain you were in, and if I had maybe we could have figured something else out before it got as bad as it did. _Maybe_. But I don’t think so, you know? Because we tried, for _weeks_. And if it hadn’t been pills, it would’ve been something else. It would have tried to take you in whatever way it could find.

“But it _was_ the pills, and I remember vividly how…” Dean swallowed, his words breaking as his eyes burned hot with unshed tears. He cleared his throat. “My point is, I would _never_ want you to walk in on a similar scene, okay?”

Sam nodded sharply, silently, but at least the look was gone from his hazel eyes, though they still swirled turbulently with emotion.

“You’re still going to the hospital,” Sam finally said, and Dean knew better than to argue with him any farther. They started walking again, or awkwardly hobbling in Dean’s case. Sam glanced over at him, a smile playing at his lips when he realized how ridiculous Dean looked.

“Look at the bright side. You’re supposed to get your casts off in two days, so I bet we can talk them into doing it now instead.”

“You look at the bright side,” Dean grumbled the lackluster comeback. But his fingers tingled with the excitement at finally getting the damn things off.

Or maybe that was just the oxycodone. But he’d keep that to himself.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

They pulled back up to the bunker just before lunch the next morning. The best part? Dean was the one driving. He didn’t even care that the doctor had insisted he remained in the hospital overnight for observation. Sam, of course, was all for that. Two against one meant Dean had shut his mouth and dealt with it. And when the doctor had walked into his room this morning carrying whatever those little cast saws were called, Dean _really_ didn’t even care that he’d had to spend the night on a too small, uncomfortably firm mattress.

“So, what do you want to do?” Sam asked as they sat in the Impala listening to the familiar sounds of the engine cooling. Dean knew that his brother meant ‘What do you want to do now that your casts are off?’

And there were about a million things Dean wanted to do, but first, “Shower,” he replied vehemently. “Definitely shower.”

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

After an extended makeout session in the shower that Dean swore did as much to steam up the room as the hot water did, they fell into bed, exhausted from the brief but intense emotional turmoil of the last twenty-four hours.

“I’m sorry,” Dean murmured. He was running his fingertips slowly up and down Sam’s arm, fascinated with the way the light touch made goosebumps appear on his brother’s smooth skin.

“For what?”

“For scaring you. For making you have to come home to that scene.”

“I’ve seen worse, even with you. _Especially_ with you.”

“Yeah, but still.” They were quiet for a few minutes, then Dean looked up, giving Sam his best imitation of puppy dog eyes. “I just…” he sighed dramatically, “I _really_ had to pee.” Sam stared silently at him for a few seconds before bursting into laughter.

His body shook with it, his head thrown back against the pillow and his eyes squeezed shut in delight. Dean couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Sam laugh like that, a deep belly laugh that spoke to Dean’s memories of hot summer days and lazy nights, laying out in a field and staring up at a sky overflowing with stars, passing a bottle of Jack back and forth, forgetting that their dad had been gone for almost three weeks on a hunt and instead just enjoying the chaperone-free time, joking around and not even realizing that he was falling in love with his brother.

And suddenly, Dean needed to do more than just hear that laugh. He needed to _taste_ it, lick it out of Sam’s mouth and swallow the sounds so that they were forever a part of him.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he growled, tangling his fingers in Sam’s hair and gripping his hip, rolling Sam over so that he was blanketing him from head to toe. He attacked Sam’s mouth while he was still mid-laugh, but Sam only grunted in surprised before he got with the program and dug his fingers into Dean’s sides. Dean drank up his brother’s moans like he was dying of thirst, coaxing more and more of them out of Sam as his hands scrambled blindly to remove their boxers (and who had thought _those_ were a good idea?!).

Dean knew exactly what he wanted, and with the way Sam was writhing underneath him, bucking his hips up into Dean’s so that their leaking cocks brushed together, stealing Dean’s breath at each teasing graze, Sam wanted the same thing.

But now that they were finally here, and the prospect of sex was no longer a distant desire but something imminent, he had a sudden flare of trepidation. Because he knew the mechanics of guy-on-guy sex—he hadn’t exactly been a sheltered kid, plus gay porn was just as easy to find as regular porn—and therefore he knew that one of them was going to have to… _catch_.

What if Sam wanted Dean to be the bottom? Not that Dean was complete averse to the idea, but it also kind of freaked him out a little. He didn’t have some stupid masculinity hang-up or fear of not being the ‘boy’ in the relationship, so to speak. No, he was freaked out because bottoming meant something going up his ass; specifically, Sam’s _giant cock_ going up his ass. Dean had never ventured down there himself—not even teasing touches around his rim while jacking off—so he just flat-out couldn’t comprehend how Sam’s monster dick would fit in him.

And then, something magical happened.

Sam’s legs parted beneath Dean, and as his hips settled perfectly into the empty space, Sam’s legs wrapped around his waist and his ankles locked together at the small of his back. The position was an obvious invitation, and Dean gasped as his next thrust brought his cock into the welcome heat between Sam’s ass cheeks. The head of his cock brushed across Sam’s hole, catching slightly against the rim, and he groaned loudly as Sam let out a sweet whimper.

“Sammy?” he asked, searching his brother’s face because he had to be absolutely certain about what was going to happen next.

“Yes,” Sam hissed, tightening his legs around Dean’s waist and pulling him closer, causing Dean’s cock to push directly against Sam’s hole. Sam didn’t let up on the pressure forcing Dean closer, and one tormenting minute later, his muscles relaxed and his hole opened slightly, and the head of Dean’s cock slipped into the most amazing, intense heat and tightness. It was dry, and lube was definitely needed _right the fuck now_ , but even without the usual slickness, it was infinitely more mind-blowing than any other sex he’d had. And they’d barely even gotten started…

“Sam, fuck! Wait, wait!” Dean practically begged, even as he desperately wished that he could skip this part. “I’ve got— _fuck_ —gotta stretch you, babe.” Sam huffed in displeasure, but after a few tense seconds his legs unlocked from around Dean’s waist and dropped back onto the mattress. Dean wasted no time in reaching up to the nightstand on his side of the bed—and oh god, he had an honest-to-god _side of the bed_ now, how fucking crazy was that?—and pulling out a brand new bottle of lube, still unopened.

He slicked up his fingers with about three times as much lube as actually needed, but he’d never done this before and he was scared shitless that he’d suck at it or, even worse, make it unenjoyable for Sam or even end up hurting him. He circled around Sam’s hole, gently pressing the pads of his fingers against the impossibly small opening but not breaching it. Sam whined, cursed at him to _stop teasing already_. But Dean wasn’t trying to tease his brother, he was simply attempting to muster up the courage to take the next step. Obviously he’d fingered girls before, but that had always been purely for pleasure, not…preparation.

Thinking that it was now or never—possibly quite literally, since if he dragged this out any longer Sam might get so annoyed and not let him do this again—Dean dipped the tip of his middle finger into his brother. He expected resistance, but the tight heat sucking him in greedily until he was buried up to the second knuckle. He let out a hungry, lust-filled whimper at the same time Sam let out a loud sigh of relief.

“Fucking finally,” his brother groaned in obvious pleasure. He began to rock his hips, working Dean’s finger in farther. “Another,” Sam demanded breathlessly, and who was Dean to deny that? He pulled his finger out slowly but not completely, then pressed a second finger into the welcoming heat. It was a tighter fit this time, and he felt Sam tense for a moment but then the muscles clenching around his fingers relaxed and Dean pushed them all the way in as Sam let out yet another satisfied moan.

Dean became more confident after that, studying his brother’s face closely to watch for any signs of discomfort as he pumped his fingers in and out, scissored them, and eventually, added a third.

It felt like he’d been doing this for hours. Both he and Sam were shaking and covered in sweat; Sam was leaking steadily onto his stomach and Dean’s cock was almost painfully hard, pressed between his body and the mattress; it was taking every ounce of willpower he had not to rut against the bed for relief.

“Dean! For the love of god, if you don’t fuck me _right now_ I will—”

Dean didn’t even let Sam finish that sentence before he pulled his fingers out of his brother and immediately lined his cock up with Sam’s hole and pushed forward. Sam gasped in shock and Dean froze, berating himself for forcing himself in like that. He was already buried halfway, and while he’d prepped Sam almost tortuously thoroughly, his cock was undeniably bigger than three of his fingers.

“Don’t you dare fucking stop!” Sam gritted out, and Dean lifted in eyebrow at his brother’s glare. Sam had the innate ability to basically completely ignore his pain tolerance level. The ability was a godsend when he got hurt in the middle of a hunt, allowing him to push through the pain instead of having it incapacitate him and giving the monster a chance to finish him off.

But now was neither the time nor the place for such a thing. Sex was supposed to feel good. And Dean had done his research; he knew that having sex for the first time, especially the _specific type_ that they were having, was almost guaranteed to hurt a little, as the stretch and fullness was unfamiliar and it took the body a few times to get used to the feeling. However, if the dozens of internet threads he’d sifted through had been telling the truth, the pain was supposed to be a dull burn that went away after a few minutes, assuming Dean had done his prep job correctly.

“Dean!” Sam insisted.

“ _Sam_ …” Dean returned evenly, staring his brother down until finally Sam huffed and his head flopped back on the pillow.

“Give me a minute?” he asked, voice small and almost meek and completely at odds with the forceful demand from seconds before.

“Of course, babe,” Dean said, softening his voice as well. The usual desire to tell his brother ‘I told you so’ didn’t dare pop its head up, not in this brand new and delicate situation.

“Thanks,” Sam breathed out, and Dean shifted carefully to reach Sam’s lips, pulling his brother into a deep and distracting kiss.

Dean lost himself in the smooth slide of tongues and sharp, teasing nips; in Sam’s soft, plush lips and sweet taste. After a few minutes, his body began shifting beneath Dean, and with an abrupt roll of hips Sam was gasping and letting out a long moan.

“Dean—” Sam began, but Dean was already there, pulling out—slowly, and just a few inches—before pushing back in gently. Sam’s grunt morphed into a frustrated growl, and that was all the confirmation Dean needed to let loose. He let his body take over, hips thrusting and snapping and swiveling to find that spot inside of Sam that had his brother biting out a curse and throwing his head back in pleasure.

Dean had been so focused and making sure he wasn’t hurting his brother that he hadn’t even had the chance to process just exactly how fucking _amazing_ it felt to be buried inside Sam. His brother was _tight_ , tighter than anyone or anything Dean had ever experienced before. Unsurprisingly, Sam ran just as hot inside as he did on the outside, and the lube slicked the way but allowed for a certain amount of friction that he’d never felt with a girl’s pussy. If anything could be described as pure bliss, it was this.

“Harder—fuck! Harder, De,” Sam begged, and Dean obliged, of course. He didn’t hold anything back, putting every once of power into each forceful slam of his hips, reveling in the feeling of not having to worry about hurting his partner with his size or strength. Sam could take all of it, and he was. Beautifully.

“So fucking beautiful, baby. Taking my cock like you were made for it, made for me. All for you, only for you, Sammy,” Dean babbled, thoughts and promises spilling out of him. But he meant every single word. “No one else, baby, never again. Just you and me.”

He buried his hands in Sam’s wild, sex-messed hair and leaned down to kiss the tears off Sam’s cheeks that had appeared seconds before. His brother was smiling, though, so Dean didn’t say anything, just caught each new tear as spilled from Sam’s shining eyes, bright and full of love.

It was all too much, too good, and sooner than he would’ve like, Dean felt heat pooling low in his belly and his balls pulling up as he neared the edge of his orgasm.

“Sammy, you close?” he panted just as Sam’s legs wrapped tight around his waist, holding him so close so that he couldn’t pull out very far. Dean went with the flow, changing his long thrusts into deep rolls. His body was plastered to Sam and they were rocking against each other, and he was buried deeper than ever in his brother.

“Oh god, oh god, oh god,” Sam whimpered, his muscles locking around Dean’s body and his hole clenching around Dean’s cock.

A moment later, Dean felt his brother’s release warm and slick between their bodies. At the same time, his hole began fluttering and pulsing around Dean’s cock, pushing Dean over the edge and into oblivion. His lips crashed into Sam’s as he spilled deep inside his brother. He realized he was wrong. This wasn’t just pure bliss; it was fucking heavenly ecstasy.


	19. That's One Way to Celebrate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Four-month time jump. Dean's all healed up and has a surprise for Sam. Actually, make that _two_ surprises...

“Welcome home, dear!” Dean chimed out when he heard the steps echoing down the hall from the direction or their garage. Sam snorted at Dean’s Stepford-wife greeting as he walked into the library, then stopped short at the sight before him.

Dean knew he probably looked ridiculous, sitting cross-legged on the floor and surrounded by piles of books stacked three and four high. He grinned sheepishly at Sam, scratched the back of his neck absently and shrugged. “Yeah, so…” He cleared his throat, shrugged again, and went back to sorting through the books, stopping occasionally to scribble on the notepad beside him.

“Sooo…?” Sam drawled after a few minutes of being ignored. Dean looked back up and chuckled to himself.  Sam’s arms were crossed and he was tapping his foot impatiently on the floor. It was all very dramatic, and completely par for the course as of the last four months. Apparently, when they had to spend half of their waking day five days a week separated, Sam got a little needy. Not that Dean minded. Nope. _Hell_ no. It almost never ended in fight like he’d first expected, instead usually leading to mind-blowing orgasms. Yep, orgasms. Plural.

Dean had long since accepted the very bizarre fact that his sex life had improved drastically after he’d started dating his brother.

(He’d also upped his romance game; having their own kitchen table to sit and eat dinner at instead of a greasy diner or the hood of the Impala, and their own bed to fuck in instead of a motel bed with stains on the ceilings above it or the backseat of the Impala had certainly aided tremendously in said romance skills.)

(Not that they hadn’t christened the Impala, every inch of it inside and the hood as well. And not the aforementioned _eating dinner_ activity.)

“Dean!” Sam was suddenly beside him, flicking his shoulder and snapping him out of some pretty steamy memories.

“Wha--? Oh! Yeah. Um. So y’know how I’ve been offering self-defense classes at the karate place downtown?”

In October, Dean had just finished up with two excruciating months of physical therapy and he’d been getting antsy with nothing to do at home. One Tuesday afternoon, he’d headed downtown to walk around and enjoy the break in heat that late fall had finally brought when he’d passed by the karate place. The sign on the front door had stopped him in his tracks and forced him inside. He’d got the part-time temporary gig on the spot.

It didn’t pay much; the class was only ninety minutes long and was held just two nights a week and once on the weekend. But it had healed his body past what physical therapy had done, and it was the first time in almost four years that Dean had a job that was actually on the books, one hundred percent honest-to-god legal. He even paid taxes! And as much fun as it was conning unsuspecting dive bar patrons out of a few hundred bucks with good acting and even better pool playing, having a legitimate job was…a nice change of pace. Refreshing.

“I think it’s technically called a martial arts school,” Sam corrected. Dean shot him his own bitchface. He might not have as many varieties as Sam had (did anyone, though?), but they were just as effective. Sam grinned cheekily but planted a kiss on Dean’s temple and dropped down on the floor beside him, squeezing Dean’s thigh in encouragement for him to continue.

 “Right. Anyways, one of the guys in the adult class is the vice principal at your school. We started chatting after class on Tuesday because, y’know, we both know you, and he asked if I worked during the day. I explained that I’d been in a car accident and just finished physical therapy last month. Then he randomly started talking about books. It was weird. But whatever, you know? Maybe he just really needed someone to talk to about books that his girlfriend doesn’t like something.

“So we kept talking, and after a few minutes he changed the conversation back to my job, or lack thereof. He asked if I knew what I was gonna do now, I said I wasn’t sure, so he asked if I had any interest in, um, teaching. English, specifically.”

Dean stopped, sucking in a breath. He bit his lip as he studied Sam’s face, his expression a mix of surprise and doubt.

“Teaching?”

“Yes.”

‘English?”

“Yes.”

“Teaching. _English_.”

“ _Yes_ , Sam,” Dean hissed in growing frustration. “Y’know, I don’t understand why you look at me like that every time I talk about books. You _know_ I read. Hell, I probably read twice as much as the average English teacher, and since usually it is—it _was_ —for research, it wasn’t even the interesting shit.”

“I’m sorry,” Sam murmured. He looked down in apologetic shame, and Dean scrunched his nose up at that. He hadn’t meant for Sam to feel bad; he knew Sam didn’t think he was stupid. He was just about to say something when Sam kept talking, offering up a quiet explanation.

“You remember…I was thirteen and was starting to come into my ‘I hate hunting and just want to be normal phase’? And you were a senior and scoffed at school, constantly asking why you had to waste your time there when you could be hunting? It was the only thing that I didn’t look up to you for, because I loved school and wished like hell that it was the center of my life like it was for most kids my age. You ended up dropping out that fall, got your GED instead. I still don’t know how you managed to convince dad to go for that one. Anyways, I guess I just…whenever you mention being interested in or enjoying something more academic, my mind gets caught on that year and how much you hated school.”

Dean carefully set down the two books he was holding—he’d been deliberating between Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing and Twelfth Night, because he knew ninth graders were required to read Shakespeare and there was no way he was subjecting them to Romeo and Juliet—and focused all of his attention on his brother.

“Sam, I didn’t hate school. It was…boring. Moving to a new school every two weeks, a month if we were lucky? Half the time I—and I know this happened with your classes, too—ended up repeating lessons, since the schools might have taught the same material but it wasn’t necessarily in the same order.” Sam nodded in acknowledgement but remained silent, allowing Dean to continue. “Plus, I always got really restless sitting at a desk for eight hours a day. It was so different than hunting, where everything was hands-on, and knowledge and research were important but they didn’t mean shit if you couldn’t apply it to real-life situations.”

Dean didn’t even realize he was talking about hunting in the past tense until the words had come out of his mouth. It looked like his subconscious had finally accepted the fact that hunting was no longer a part of their lives, at least for the foreseeable future. He ignored it though, as Sam hadn’t seemed to notice. Instead, Sam was biting his lip, and had that look on his face like he wanted to argue with Dean but didn’t want it to turn into an _argument_.

“I never knew that,” Sam admitted softly. “But Dean, some of those issues could still cause problems for you. Like the theory versus hands-on stuff, or the being cooped up basically in the same room for forty hours a week.”

“But it’s not the same, Sam. I mean, the restlessness thing, it wasn’t just physical. It was mental, too. But getting to be the teacher would mean I’d have control over the tone and pace of the room, and it’d also mean I’d have to think on my feet. I’m not teaching eleventh grade honors English, where everyone has straight As and wants to be there. I’ll be teaching ninth grade, and two of those classes will be students who barely passed the year before. I’ll have to figure out how to keep them interested in learning about this stuff, and yes, how it relates to the real world.”

Sam’s teeth worried at his lip some more, his mind no doubt combing through everything Dean had just said. Finally, he said, “It sounds like you’ve given this a lot of thought.”

“He asked me _yesterday_ and I already have almost a month’s worth of lesson plans finished.”

“You’re…excited.” Sam blinked in surprise, the realization hitting him like it was some kind of spiritual revelation. Dean didn’t think it was that big of a deal. “No, really, Dean. I mean, it’s not like you’ve been depressed or anything, but I haven’t seen this side of you since we stopped hunting. Not counting sex, of course,” Sam grinned wickedly. “Fuck, well there’s no way I’m going to talk you out of this. And it’s obvious that you’ve considered all the issues I’ve brought up, so. Wow. Shit, come here!” Sam fisted the front of Dean’s shirt and tugged him forwards into a heated kiss.

“I take it this calls for a celebration?” Dean asked hopefully, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively and causing Sam to snort.

“Whatever you want, baby,” Sam purred just as ridiculously.

“I want you to eat me out,” Dean drawled, all joking gone. Sam froze for a few seconds, then began attacking his mouth again with renewed fervor.

“Fuck, that’s so hot. Seriously? You mean it?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Fuck, yeah, okay. But you’re still gonna fuck me after, right?” Sam practically whimpered.

“Wouldn’t dream of saying no to you,” Dean said, standing and pulling Sam up with him before they stumbled down the hall, bumping into halls while they tried to disrobe each other without breaking their liplock.

By the time they reached their bedroom, they were both completely nude, save for Sam trying to kick off the sock on his left foot. They tumbled into bed, Sam landing on top of Dean almost kneeing him in the balls.

“Shit! Careful there, or you’ll have to get used to just my hand for the next few days,” Dean said. Sam smiled almost shyly, carefully arranging his long legs on either side of Dean’s hips before leaning down to press their lips together once again.

“Wouldn’t want that,” he murmured into Dean’s mouth. Dean hummed in agreement and used the opportunity to flick his tongue into Sam’s mouth. Sam welcomed him greedily, tongues tangling together. Dean realized abruptly that in a few minutes, Sam would more or less be doing this to his _ass_.

And then, with some impressive maneuvering on Sam’s part—and Dean always found himself surprised at how smooth his usually-klutzy brother’s movements became during sex, barring the recent almost-mishap—he was on his back and Sam was perched on his stomach, facing his lower half. It was reminiscent of that one time he suggested they fuck cowboy-style (causing one of Sam’s most epic eyerolls and bitchfaces to date) before discovering that the position was somewhat awkward, and Dean realized that the reality just didn’t live up to the fantasy.

Anyways, as much as he enjoyed this view of his brother’s perky ass, he wasn’t sure how it was supposed to be conducive to his, uh, earlier proposition. And then—

 _Oh_.

And _then_ …

In one final quick shift of bodies, Sam had them rolling over so that Dean was now on top, his knees bracketing Sam’s shoulders. He silently thanked the mattress gods for inventing king-sized beds, otherwise they would’ve rolled right off onto the floor, which Dean knew from personal experience was a serious mood-killer. Having a two-hundred-pound naked sasquatch of a brother fall—

“Dean. _Dean_. _Dean_!” Sam said, lightly slapping Dean’s ass and causing his body to jerk forward and his mind to jerk out of his thoughts and back to the present activities.

“What?” Dean snapped, arching around to glare at Sam. He could feel his face heating up, knew that the telltale flush of his cheeks and the way his dick had jumped at Sam’s slap and then started steadily leaking precome onto his brother’s stomach was a dead giveaway that he was infinitely more aroused than annoyed, but hey. He had to keep up appearances.

Instead of answering him, though, Sam just smirked, grabbed Deans hips in a bruising grip, and pulled him down until he was _sitting_ on Sam’s _face_. For one excruciating second, Dean was horrified and he tensed up, trying to pull up off his brother. And then… _fuck_.

He was moaning obscenely, muscles going lax as he sank down farther onto Sam’s face. He really hoped Sam could breathe, but he couldn’t string even two words together to ask. His brother’s tongue was working his hole, alternating licking around it and over it and then pressing against it, testing the resistance. Fuck, Dean could come just from this. No wonder Sam dissolved into a puddle of half-formed curses and desperate begging whenever Dean did this.

 _And then_.

Dean relaxed even farther, achieving complete boneless bliss, and in that moment, Sam’s tongue breached his hole and pushed past the first ring of muscle. Out of nowhere, there was a hand on his cock and Dean was coming, coming hard and clenching up around Sam’s tongue and trapping it there and fuck if that sensation didn’t just cause him to come even harder. His orgasm felt like it lasted a year, but when he finally came down from the high he found himself not in his usual fucked-out, blissed-out, post-orgasmic haze, but strong and clear-headed and—yep, his cock was still hard and throbbing in Sam’s grip.

Sam’s mouth hadn’t left Dean’s ass, although now his brother had taken over the moaning when Dean had devolved into whimpering. There was no way Dean wanted Sam to stop, and there was no way Dean planned on not being buried in Sam’s ass within the next five minutes. So he dragged the fingers of his left hand through his own come on Sam’s stomach before reaching between his brother’s spread legs and immediately sinking one finger all the way in. Sam arched up but Dean was already there, his right hand circled tightly around the base of his brother’s cock to stave off an orgasm while he pumped his finger in and out.

He added a second finger, scissoring his brother open quickly before withdrawing and re-slicking his fingers with his homemade lube. There was something undeniably dirty about using his own come as lube, and there was also something _dirty_ about it. Right now, Dean only cared about the second, and how turned on he was by it. If the noises spilling out of Sam’s mouth—muffled but still loud—were any indication, Sam though it was pretty fucking hot as well.

Dean pushed three slick fingers into Sam; it was hot and tight and suddenly Dean needed to be in there right the fuck now, he needed to fill Sam up, with his cock and with his release.

It was with agonizing difficulty and will power of steel that Dean managed to pull away from the ecstasy that was Sam’s rim job, twisting and fumbling around on his hands and knees until he’d managed to orient himself over Sam so that they were face to face. He immediately dropped down, needily seeking out his brother’s mouth, his lips, his tongue that tasted like the most intimate place of Dean’s body. Dean reached down blindly, lining himself up with Sam’s hole and sinking in as he felt the familiar weight of Sam’s legs settle around the small of his back.

It didn’t last long after that, though there was nothing about it that was rough or hurried. Dean’s thrusts were slow but deep and forceful, Sam’s body arching up off the bed to meet him each time. It only took a few minutes before he felt the heat in his belly drop down to his groin, his balls pulling up tight and ready to fill Sam up.

“Sam, I—” Dean started to say, and then Sam’s own cock erupted between their bodies, painting both of their stomachs and chests with sticky, pearly come. Dean couldn’t hold back his own orgasm, not when Sam’s hole was clenching and pulsing around his own cock. He came a second later, his thrusts changing to short and fast, his own release drawing out Sam’s orgasm, which in turn extended his own. Wave after wave of pleasure washed over Dean, and when he finally collapsed on top of Sam and then rolled them onto their sides, he stayed buried in his brother’s comforting heat as they both drifted off to sleep.


End file.
